BV  4241  .M3 

McKeehan,  Hobart  Dietrich, 
1897- 

Great  modern  sermons 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/greatmodernsermoOOmcke 


Great  Modern  Sermons 


> 


Great  Modern  Sermons 


EDITED  BY 

HOBART  D.  McKEEHAN,  S.  T.  M. 

Pastor  t  St.  Paul's  Reformed  Church ,  Dallastown ,  Pennsylvania 


New  York  Chicago 

FI  eming  H.  Revel]  Company 

*  London  and  Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1923,  by 

FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
London:  2!  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh :  75  Princes  Street 


Preface 


A  SELECTION  of  really  great  sermons, 
like  an  anthology  of  poetry,  is  a  treasure- 
store  of  sentiment  and  thought.  Both  the 
lay  reader  and  the  student  of  homiletics  may  profit 
by  the  reading.  Here  are  perfect  models  open  to 
analysis  and  review,  and  the  reader  may  glance 
before  and  after  in  the  pursuit  of  the  author’s 
thoughts .  and  inspirations.  These  models  repre¬ 
sent  not  the  great  sermons  of  yesterday,  but  of 
to-day. 

No  such  volume  of  representative  character  has 
thus  far  appeared,  though  there  are  numerous  col¬ 
lections  of  sermons  of  the  decades  past.  One  must 
keep  up  with  the  changing  trend  of  style  in  rhetoric 
and  composition.  For  example,  the  sermons  of 
the  past  depended  on  form  and  technical  com¬ 
position,  whereas  the  sermon  of  to-day  tends  to¬ 
ward  directness  and  simplicity  as  the  route  to 
power.  We  have  in  this  volume  made  the  humble 
venture  to  collect  what  is  representative  of  the 
best  in  modern  homiletics,  as  opposed  to  the 
formal,  well-divided,  and  sometimes  laborious 
classic  of  the  older  school. 

Although  the  editor  has  exercised  his  own  judg¬ 
ment  in  the  selection  of  preachers  who  have  made 

5 


6 


PREFACE 


their  contributions,  he  has,  in  most  instances,  per¬ 
mitted  each  contributor  to  choose  the  sermon  repre¬ 
sentative  of  his  best  pulpit  efforts.  In  several 
cases  a  number  of  manuscripts  were  submitted  by 
contributors  and  the  choice  lay  entirely  with  the 
editor. 

No  two  editors  would  probably  agree  as  to  the 
list  of  the  ten  or  twelve  supreme  preachers  of  this 
generation.  But  to  produce  the  selection  a  decision 
had  to  be  made.  The  basis  of  choice  has  been  laid 
upon  the  consensus  of  opinion,  the  verdict  of 
scholars,  and  of  a  world  that  loves  inspired  preach¬ 
ing.  No  formal  rhetoric  or  other  rule  of  homiletic 
art  will  have  half  as  much  force  as  the  power  of 
example,  of  good  models.  These  splendid  creations 
of  our  modern  preachers  are  not  intended  to  dazzle 
or  to  be  slavishly  imitated  or  to  submerge  one’s 
individuality.  They  are  meant  rather  to  create  new 
thought  and  fresh  devotion  to  the  ministry,  and  to 
stimulate  to  a  higher  order  of  effort.  The  com¬ 
piler  will  be  well  rewarded  if  this  object  is  ful¬ 
filled,  even  in  small  degree. 

Regret  is  recorded  that  Dr.  William  Lonsdale 
Watkinson,  the  greatest  surviving  preacher  of  the 
Victorian  era,  owing  to  advanced  age  and  illness, 
has  been  unable  to  prepare  and  submit  the  manu¬ 
script  of  sermon  which  we  intended  to  include  in 
this  volume.  Thanks  are  due  my  esteemed  friend, 
Rev.  S.  Parkes  Cadman,  D.  D.,  who  consulted  Dr. 
Watkinson  personally,  and  reported  his  inability  to 


PEEFACE 


7 


make  a  contribution.  Dr.  Watkinson’s  sermons 
offer  almost  incomparable  models,  and  we  can  do 
no  better  than  commend  to  the  reader  his  latest 
volume,  “  The  Shepherd  of  the  Sea  ”  (Revell). 

Hobart  Deitrich  McKeehan. 

Dallastown,  Pa. 


/ 


Contents 

I.  Religious  Revivals  .  .  .  .II 

(. Romans  8  : 1 4.) 

Rev.  E.  W.  Barnes,  M.  A.,  F.  R.  A.  S. 

II.  The  Faith  that  Counts  .  .  .23 

(John  9:  35 •) 

Rev.  David  James  Burrell,  D.D.,  LL.  D. 

III.  Faith’s  Coronation  35 

( I  Timothy  1  :y.) 

Rev.  S.  Parkes  Cadman,  D.D.,  S.T.D. 

IV.  Procrastination . 49 

(Acts  24 : 25.) 

Rev.  Harry  Emerson  Fosdick,  D.D. 

V.  The  World  Under  the  Aspect  of 

Tragedy . 69 

(Lamentations  y  ;  22 .) 

Rev.  George  Angier  Gordon,  D,D. 

VI.  What  If  Christ  Were  Not?  .  .  81 

(John  6  :  67  y  68.) 

Rev.  Newell  Dwight  Hillis,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

VII.  The  Weapon  of  Purity  97 

(Psalm  42  :  I.) 

Rev.  John  A.  Hutton,  D.D. 

VIII.  Willing  and  Knowing 

(John  7 : 17.) 

Rev*  W.  R.  Inge,  D.D.,  C.V.O. 

9 


1 1 1 


10 


CONTENTS 


IX.  The  Spirit  of  Christ  .  .  .  .131 

(. Romans  8  :  <?.) 

Rev.  Charles  E.  Jefferson,  D.D. 

X.  The  Cross — The  Measure  of  the 

World . 147 

{Rev.  21 :  15.  I  Cor.  i  :  23,  24.) 

Rev.  John  Kelman,  D.D. 

XI.  Life  After  Death  .  .  .  165 

( Luke  24  ;j >0, 31.) 

Rev.  J.  Fort  Newton,  D.D.,  Litt.  D. 

XII.  Reciprocal  Faith  .  179 

{John  2 :  23 ,  24.) 

Rev.  F.  W.  Norwood,  D.D. 

XIII.  Christ's  Man . 193 

{Romans  8 ;  9.) 

Rev.  Frederick  F.  Shannon,  D.D. 


I 

RELIGIOUS  REVIVALS 

By 

ERNEST  WILLIAM  BARNES,  M.  A.,  F.  R.  A.  S., 

Canon  of  Westminster 


i 


Ernest  William  Barnes  was  born  April  i,  1874. 
He  received  his  education  at  King  Edward’s  School, 
Birmingham,  and  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  In 
1902  he  was  ordained  as  an  Anglican  clergyman.  He 
was  Select  Preacher  to  Cambridge  in  1906  and  Ox¬ 
ford  1914-1916  and  has  been  Canon  of  Westminster 
since  1918.  Canon  Barnes  is  a  famous  scientist  and 
has  become  a  no  less  famous  preacher.  The  distinc¬ 
tive  quality  of  his  mind  is  an  invaluable  asset  not 
simply  to  the  Church  of  England,  but  to  all  Prot¬ 
estantism. 


I 


RELIGIOUS  REVIVALS1 


“As  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God ,  these 
are  sons  of  God” — Romans  8: 14. 

LL  religious  people  ought  to  be  glad  when 


others  feel  themselves  called  to  serve  and 


worship  God.  Yet  many  among  us  re¬ 


gard  the  sudden  appearance  of  religious  enthusiasm 
with  critical  coldness  or  open  hostility.  Such 
Christians  instinctively  show  the  temper  of  men  of 
the  world  who  have  no  active  religious  faith.  The 
worldly  are  almost  invariably  contemptuous  of,  or 
angered  by,  great  religious  movements;  they  con¬ 
demn  revivals,  as  we  now  commonly  term  them. 
Only  when  a  spiritual  movement  has  established 
itself,  when  its  beneficial  character  is  too  plain  to 
be  doubted,  does  it  receive  from  the  world  at  first 
a  grudging,  and  then  a  respectful  recognition. 

At  the  present  time,  alike  in  East  Anglia  and  in 
Northeast  Scotland,  there  have  been  notable  signs 
of  a  religious  awakening  among  some  sections  of 
our  people.  In  Southern  India  and  in  Central 
Africa  an  enthusiasm  for  Christianity  has  recently 
shown  itself,  so  extensive  that  the  missionary  so- 

1  Delivered  in  Westminster  Abbey  and  published  also  in 
The  Church  Family  Newspaper. 


14 


RELIGIOUS  REVIVALS 


cieties  have  found  their  resources  insufficient  for 
the  suddenly-developed  need.  Our  newspapers,  for 
the  most  part,  either  ignore  these  movements  or 
are  sceptical  that  any  permanent  good  will  result 
from  them.  What  ought  our  attitude  to  be?  This 
afternoon  we  may  well  meditate  upon  this  impor¬ 
tant  subject,  and  remind  ourselves  of  the  nature 
and  consequence  of  some  similar  movements  in  the 
past. 

William  Booth’s  Efforts 

Some  of  us  are  old  enough  to  remember  the  days 
when  William  Booth  began  his  effective  public 
ministry,  and  the  Salvation  Army  spread  through¬ 
out  England.  His  methods  were  decried  for  their 
vulgarity.  Street-corner  preaching  was  derided. 
The  so-called  Skeleton  Army  was  organized  to' 
break  up  his  meetings.  At  times  the  police  took 
action  for  obstruction  against  his  officers;  but, 
when  in  the  north  of  England  a  magistrate  stepped 
from  the  Bench  to  take  a  place  in  the  dock  by  the 
side  of  a  woman  in  a  Salvation  Army  bonnet,  the 
end  of  official  interference  was  rapid.  And  Wil¬ 
liam  Booth  lived  to  receive  an  honorary  degree 
from  the  University  of  Oxford. 

Very  similar  was  the  experience  of  Wesley  and 
Whitefield,  the  pioneers  and  leaders  of  the  great 
Evangelical  Movement  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Whitefield  was  a  man  of  the  people,  with  a  superb 
gift  for  popular  open-air  preaching.  Wesley  was 


E.  W.  BARNES 


15 


an  Oxford  scholar  of  good  family,  at  first  reluctant 
to  do  anything  so  unusual  as  preaching  in  field  or 
market-place.  When  he  took  the  plunge,  he  found 
his  life’s  work.  Both  men  at  first  had  to  endure 
persecution,  kicks,  blows  and  missiles  from  the 
half-savage,  wholly  pagan  rabble  of  the  time. 
Men  of  position,  even  some  of  the  clergy,  en¬ 
couraged  or  condoned  such  violence.  Enthusiasm 
was  a  word  of  contempt.  In  1768  six  under¬ 
graduates  were  brought  by  their  tutor  before  the 
Vice-Chancellor  of  Oxford  on  the  charge  that  they 
were  “  enthusiasts  who  talked  of  regeneration,  in¬ 
spiration,  and  drawing  nigh  to  God.”  On  this 
charge  they  were  expelled  from  the  University. 
In  the  end,  of  course,  spiritual  enthusiasm  justified 
both  itself  and  the  men  whose  lives  it  enriched. 
Wesley,  after  an  incredibly  active  open-air  ministry 
of  fifty-two  years,  died  in  1791,  respected  and 
honoured  by  good  men  throughout  England.  From 
the  fire  which  he  kindled  came  the  greater  part  of 
the  spiritual  energy  which  regenerated  both  our 
Church  and  Non-conformity  at  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Probably  few  in  his  own  life¬ 
time  thought  of  him  as  a  political  force ;  he  was  a 
prophet  called  by  God  to  preach  the  Gospel  with 
power  and  great  glory.  But  modern  historians, 
asking  why  this  country  was  preserved  from  the 
horrors  of  the  French  Revolution,  find  in  Wesley 
and  his  fellow  Evangelists  the  reason.  He  en¬ 
listed  in  the  service  of  Christ  many  who  would 


16 


RELIGIOUS  REVIVALS 


otherwise  have  been  wild  and  impetuous  reform¬ 
ers.  Through  him  the  spirit  of  peace  and  right¬ 
eousness  became  strong  in  the  land.  Though  our 
people  suffered  and  endured  much  that  was  evil, 
W esley  had  taught  them  that,  by  brotherhood  and 
not  by  violence,  men  build  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

The  Eighteenth  Century 

The  great  Evangelical  Movement  of  the  eight¬ 
eenth  century  is  especially  interesting  as  showing 
how  rapidly  and  how  far  spiritual  earnestness  can 
travel.  A  religious  awakening  in  South  Germany 
led  to  the  foreign  missionary  work  of  the  Moravian 
brotherhood.  Both  here  and  in  America  its  influ¬ 
ence  was  felt,  and  in  particular,  by  John  Wesley. 
Wesley’s  early  mission  to  Georgia  failed;  but 
Methodist  success  in  Western  England  led  to  sim¬ 
ilar  success  in  America.  Later  the  stream  of  in¬ 
spiration  flowed  back  to  England,  and  so  fired 
William  Carey  and  his  friends  of  the  Northampton 
Association  that  they  started  to  preach  the  Gospel 
in  India.  In  all  this  wonderful  development  there 
was  a  unity.  We  seem  to  see  many  movements  in 
different  lands.  In  reality  the  same  Spirit  was 
dominant  in  all;  the  same  purpose  and  the  same 
power,  in  Anglican,  Methodist,  Baptist  and  Mora¬ 
vian,  showed  that  all  were  fundamentally  one  in 
Christ  Jesus. 

In  the  light  of  such  facts  of  history,  we  may 
well  inquire  why  it  is  that  religious  revivals,  when 


E.  W.  BARNES 


17 


they  begin,  should  be  so  disliked  alike  by  the 
worldly  and  the  placidly  religious.  Why  are  they 
commonly  viewed  with  prejudice,  and  their  leaders 
often  reviled?  The  early  Christians,  products  of 
the  greatest  religious  movement  in  the  history  of 
mankind,  were  accused  of  atheism  and  foul  vices. 
For  a  century  after  St.  Paul’s  death  the  educated 
of  the  ancient  world  almost  invariably  excluded 
from  their  writings  any  mention  of  the  new  and 
despicable  superstition.  Now,  several  reasons 
combine  to  create  this  attitude.  There  is  distrust 
of  the  unknown.  An  outburst  of  religious  zeal  is 
inexplicable;  and  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
is  disturbing.  Those  in  whom  it  comes  to  dwell 
see  the  world  in  new  light,  and  comfortable 
hypocrisies  wither  under  its  glare.  Then,  too,  all 
strong  emotion  is  unpleasant  to  an  onlooker;  the 
behaviour  of  those  to  whom  the  revelation  of  God 
comes  suddenly  is  that  of  men  at  a  crisis,  tears 
and  intimate  speech,  penitence  and  joy.  When  tears 
made  white  marks  down  the  cheeks  of  the  colliers 
to  whom  Whitefield  preached,  respectable  people 
were  repelled.  It  was  to  them  as  if  some  obscure 
contagion  had  broken  out.  We  may  admit  that 
such  a  view  is  not  wholly  wrong.  As  the  Dean  of 
St.  Paul’s  has  well  said,  “  Religion  is  caught, 
not  taught.”  In  a  spiritually  healthy  society  we 
may  catch  it  unawares,  and  grow,  as  it  were  nat¬ 
urally,  to  feel  the  presence  of  God,  His  Spirit 
guiding  and  aiding  us.  But,  when  the  Spirit 


18 


RELIGIOUS  REYIYALS 


comes  among  masses  of  men  to  whom  religion  has 
meant  nothing,  it  may  come  with  explosive  force. 
Organized  society  fears  explosions;  they  may  be 
dangerous.  Further,  as  we  examine  the  causes  of 
dislike  of  religious  enthusiasm,  let  us  admit  that 
sometimes  the  fire  burns  out  quickly;  no  lasting 
good  results.  The  parable  of  the  sower  shows 
that  Jesus  was  well  aware  of  this  disappointing 
end.  Sometimes  reaction  makes  the  whole  process 
not  merely  barren  but  harmful.  To  the  house 
swept  and  garnished  come  seven  devils  worse  than 
the  first.  Then,  too,  there  are  always  persons 
ready  to  exploit  a  religious  movement  for  base  per¬ 
sonal  advantage.  The  greater  religious  leaders 
have  been  strong  to  protect  their  organizations 
from  self-seeking  adventurers.  St.  Paul,  Wesley, 
Booth  were  all,  for  this  reason,  somewhat  auto¬ 
cratic  in  their  rule. 

— "  Justified  By  Their  Fruits 

Yet,  when  all  that  is  to  their  discredit  is  ad¬ 
mitted,  the  great  uprushes  of  the  Spirit  are  justi¬ 
fied  by  their  fruits.  They  bring  into  the  presence 
of  God  men  who  have  never  been  there  before. 
In  the  words  of  the  Psalmist  they  create  clean 
hearts ;  they  renew  a  right  spirit  in  human  society. 
Critics  who  say  that  the  theology  of  revivalism  is 
crude  are  in  danger  of  forgetting  that  an  impec¬ 
cable  theology  may  be  joined  to  singularly  barren 
forms  of  organized  religion.  Churches  grow 


E.  W.  BARNES 


19 


sterile  unless  quickened  by  just  those  spiritual 
movements  which  at  first  their  members  are  apt  to 
regard  with  disfavour.  Often  a  movement,  when 
organized  into  a  Church,  loses  its  power  as  the 
original  impetus  becomes  a  dying  tradition.  Noth¬ 
ing  is  more  pathetic  than  the  sight  of  a  great  re¬ 
ligious  movement  become  threadbare.  Phrases 
and  formulae  survive.  Once  they  meant  much. 
They  were  the  battle-cries  of  spiritual  welfare,  the 
best  expression  men  could  give  of  the  enthusiasm 
which  transformed  their  lives.  They  were  in  some 
ways  like  paper  money,  of  merely  symbolic  value; 
but  behind  them  was  the  gold  of  spiritual  reality, 
and  so  they  satisfied  human  needs.  Yet  there 
comes  a  time  in  the  history  of  every  religious  move¬ 
ment  when  the  spirit  which  made  it  passes  away. 
So  it  was  with  Pharisaism,  the  finest  religious  de¬ 
velopment  of  post-exilic  Judaism.  The  salt  lost 
its  savour.  Insensibly  a  passion  for  truth  and 
righteousness  became  a  tradition  of  casuistry  and 
formalism.  Needless  to  say,  men  are  not  redeemed 
by  defensive  verbal  ingenuity  or  by  self-regarding 
schemes  of  conduct.  Yet  he  who  would  break 
tradition  to  renew  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
seems  to  upholders  of  tradition  a  dangerous  man. 
The  faith  is  imperilled,  its  unity  destroyed,  thought 
the  Pharisees,  by  a  Teacher  who  would  play  fast 
and  loose  with  laws  ascribed  to  Moses.  None  but 
a  man  careless  of  economic  security  or  national 
honour  would  denounce  the  rich  and  preach 


20 


RELIGIOUS  REVIVALS 


“  Resist  no  evil.”  So  the  professional  exponents 
of  the  laws  of  Moses  ranged  themselves  against 
Him  Who  came,  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfill  that 
law.  The  righteous  and  the  worldly  alike  en¬ 
couraged  the  mob  to  cry  “  Crucify  Him.” 

To  Serve  God  is  to  Follow  Jesus 

Religious  people  need  always  to  be  on  their 
guard  lest  they  range  themselves  with  tradition 
against  the  Spirit  of  God.  Let  us  allow  that  not 
every  enthusiasm  which  stirs  men  is  divine.  But 
when  religious  enthusiasm  leads  to  a  passion  for 
justice  and  righteousness,  for  truth  and  love,  there 
is  in  it  the  true  Spirit  of  Christ.  In  the  Hebrew 
prophets  His  Spirit  appeared.  His  was  the  mes¬ 
sage,  “  I  will  have  mercy,  and  not  sacrifice,” 
whereby  the  prophets  set  personal  purity  and  social 
service  above  formal  worship.  In  modern  times 
the  presence  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ  is  similarly  the 
test  of  true  religious  understanding.  It  is  not  an 
accident  that  those  religious  revivals  which  have 
been  supremely  fruitful  have  led  me  to  Jesus,  to 
find  in  Him  the  Lord  and  Saviour  of  mankind. 
For  to  serve  God,  to  be  true  to  the  best  that  we 
can  picture,  is  to  follow  Jesus,  to  make  Him  an 
example  and  pattern.  And  we  cannot  be  loyal  to 
Jesus  without  painful  effort,  inward  conflict,  re¬ 
nunciation,  suffering.  So  men  who  are  converted 
always  make  the  Cross  central  in  their  outlook  on 
human  life.  On  the  Cross  Jesus  showed  that  the 


E.  W.  BARNES 


21 


Son  of  God  had  to  give  up  all  to  do  His  Father’s 
will.  There  His  love  for  mankind  was  seen  in 
service  sealed  by  death.  There  in  loneliness  and 
misery  He  passed  to  the  New  Life  which,  through 
Him,  all  may  win.  The  man  who  would  save  his 
life  shall  lose  it,  but  he  who  will  give  it  up  that 
the  Kingdom  of  Christ  may  come  shall  keep  it 
unto  life  eternal.  Such  is  the  final  answer  to  the 
question,  “Is  religion  worth  while?”  “How 
shall  we  balance  gain  and  loss?”  The  same 
answer  is  put  in  other  words  in  Isaac  Watts’ 
familiar  lines: 

“  When  I  survey  the  wondrous  Cross, 

Where  the  young  Prince  of  Glory  died, 

My  richest  gain  I  count  but  loss, 

And  pour  contempt  on  all  my  pride.” 

What  We  Need 

If  these  lines  do  not  ring  true  in  our  ears,  if 
their  beauty  seems  faded  or  their  sentiment  ex¬ 
aggerated,  we  have  forgotten  the  rock  on  which 
Christ’s  Church  is  built.  Many  there  are  amongst 
us  to  whom  the  Gospel  and  the  Cross  mean  little. 
The  war  has  quenched  the  Spirit.  It  has  done 
much  to  barbarize  thought.  New  cults  are  flourish¬ 
ing  which  are  travesties  of  religion;  for  they 
neither  emphasize  that  the  God  Who  made  us  for 
Himself  is  righteousness  and  love,  nor  do  they 
point  to  One  Who,  by  the  perfection  of  His  service, 
explained  the  puzzle  of  human  life.  We  need  a 


22 


KELIGI0U3  KEVIVALS 


wave  of  spiritual  understanding  to  flow  over  the 
land,  a  revival  in  which  men  shall  see  through 
Jesus  why  they  exist  and  what  they  ought  to  do 
and  be.  Here  we  are,  in  a  Universe  of  incom¬ 
prehensible  vastness,  shut  in  by  the  unknown  on 
every  side,  mere  dust  and  water,  for  an  absurdly 
brief  time  alive.  Dreams  and  fears  and  hopes, 
appetites  and  aspirations — and  then  quickly  the 
end.  What  is  man?  What  is  the  meaning  of  his 
life,  its  value  in  the  whole  scheme  of  things? 
There  is,  I  am  convinced,  no  explanation  of  it  all, 
save  in  that  revelation  of  God  which  came  through 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  And  this  is  why,  when,  in 
a  revival  of  religion,  men  are  converted  and  find 
Christ,  their  wanderings  cease  and  their  true 
pilgrimage  begins.  “  As  many  as  are  led  by  the 
Spirit  of  God,  these  are  sons  of  God.” 


II 

THE  FAITH  THAT  COUNTS 

By 

DAVID  JAMES  BURRELL,  D.  D.,  LL.  D., 
Fast  or  of  Marble  Collegiate  (Reformed)  Church , 

New  York 


David  James  Burrell  was  born  at  Mount  Pleasant, 
Pa.,  August  i,  1844.  He  received  his  education  at 
Yale  University  and  at  Union  Theological  Seminary, 
New  York  City;  ordained  Presbyterian  ministry, 
1872;  missionary,  Chicago,  1872-1876;  Pastor  Sec¬ 
ond  Church,  Dubuque,  la.,  1876-1887;  Westminster 
Church,  Minneapolis,  1887-1891.  Since  1891,  Dr. 
Burrell  has  been  pastor  of  the  historic  Marble  Col¬ 
legiate  Reformed  Church  on  Fifth  Avenue,  New 
York  City.  Dr.  Burrell  represents  both  a  great 
preacher  and  an  uncommon  pastor.  For  more  than 
thirty  years,  his  pulpit  has  been  his  throne,  while  his 
influence  has  spread  all  over  America.  Dr.  Burrell 
is  the  author  of  more  than  forty  different  books,  to¬ 
gether  with  many  tracts  and  sermons. 

Among  Dr.  Burrell’s  many  volumes  may  be  men¬ 
tioned:  The  Laughter  of  God,  Why  I  Believe  the 
Bible,  The  Sermon:  Its  Construction  and  Delivery, 
The  Religion  of  the  Future,  The  Spirit  of  the  Age, 
The  Lure  of  the  City,  Christ  and  Progress,  The 
Wondrous  Cross  and  The  Evolution  of  a  Christian. 


II 


THE  FAITH  THAT  COUNTS 


“  Dost  thou  believe  on  the  Son  of  God  t  ” 

—John  9:35. 


A  BLIND  man  sits  by  the  Temple  gate  with 
his  hand  stretched  out  for  alms.  A 
group  of  men  approach,  who  seem  to  be 
disputing  about  the  doctrine  of  Original  Sin.  The 
blind  beggar  furnished  an  illustration  in  point. 
“  Master,  who  did  sin,”  they  ask,  “  this  man  or  his 
parents,  that  he  was  born  blind?  ” — “  Neither,”  He 
answers,  “  so  far  as  we  are  concerned  just  now. 
The  question  is,  What  shall  be  done  about  it  ?  As 
for  me,  I  must  work  the  works  of  Him  that  hath 
sent  me,  while  it  is  day.”  Thereupon  He  anoints 
the  beggar’s  eyes  with  clay  and  bids  him,  “  Go 
wash  in  the  pool  of  Siloam.”  The  man  gropes  his 
way  to  the  pool  near  by,  while  Jesus  and  His  dis¬ 
ciples  pass  on  to  Solomon’s  Porch,  His  usual 
preaching  station,  where  the  people  gather  about 
Him. 

The  beggar,  having  recovered  his  sight,  returns 
to  his  customary  place  by  the  gate,  where  he  is 
naturally  the  observed  of  all  observers.  Some  are 
asking,  “Is  not  this  the  blind  beggar?”  Others 

25 


26 


THE  FAITH  THAT  COUNTS 


say,  “  It  is  impossible ;  look  at  his  eyes !  ”  The 
man  settles  the  question  by  affirming,  “  I  am  he.” 
They  ask  how  his  eyes  were  opened. — “  A  man  that 
is  called  Jesus  anointed  mine  eyes  with  clay  and 
bade  me  wash  in  Siloam;  and  I  went  and  washed 
and  received  my  sight.” — “  Where  is  this  man?  ” — 
“I  know  not;  I  wish  I  did,  that  I  might  thank 
him.” 

They  lead  the  beggar  to  the  Pharisees  in  the 
Temple,  who  proceed  to  catechize  him:  “  Art  thou 
the  blind  man  who  sat  by  the  gate?  ” — “  I  am.” — 
“  How  didst  thou  receive  thy  sight?” — “A  man 
that  is  called  Jesus  bade  me  wash  in  Siloam, 
which  I  did  and  came  seeing.” — “  When  did  this 
occur?” — ‘‘This  morning/’ — At  this  there  is  a 
lifting  of  their  eyebrows;  “Aha,  this  Jesus  is  a 
sinner.  He  has  been  breaking  the  Sabbath !  What 
sayest  thou  of  him?” — “I  say  he  must  be  a 
prophet ;  ”  that  is,  a  holy  man. 

At  this  point  the  parents  of  the  man  are  called 
and  questioned:  “  Is  this  your  son  who  was  bom 
blind?  “  It  is.”— “  How  then  doth  he  see?  ”— 
“  We  know  that  this  is  our  son  and  that  he  was 
born  blind,  but  by  what  means  he  doth  now  see  we 
know  not,  or  who  hath  opened  his  eyes  we  know 
not.  He  is  of  age;  ask  him.”  They  evidently 
scent  danger  and  prudently  avoid  it. 

The  fact  of  the  beggar’s  cure  being  now  beyond 
question,  the  inquisitors  turn  again  to  him,  saying, 
“  Give  God  the  praise.  As  for  this  Jesus,  he  is  a 


DAVID  JAMES  BURRELL 


27 


sinner;  thou  shouldst  have  no  dealings  with  him.” 
His  answer  is,  “  Whether  he  be  a  sinner  I  know 
not;  one  thing  I  know,  that  whereas  I  was  blind, 
now  I  see !  ”  They  continue,  “  Tell  us,  what  did  he 
do  ?  How  opened  he  thine  eyes  ?  ” — “  I  have  told 
you  and  ye  believed  not;  why  pursue  the  matter? 
Would  ye  be  his  disciples?”  This  is  too  much; 
they  lose  their  temper:  “Thou  art  his  disciple! 
As  for  us  we  are  Moses’  disciples.  We  know  that 
God  spake  unto  Moses;  but  as  for  this  fellow,  we 
know  not  whence  he  is.” — “  Why  here  is  a  marvel¬ 
lous  thing,”  he  exclaims,  “  that  ye  know  not  whence 
he  is  and  yet  he  hath  opened  mine  eyes!  How 
could  he,  if  God  were  not  with  him?”  Sound 
reasoning,  but  how  tactless  and  presumptuous  on  a 
beggar’s  lips !  “  Thou  wast  altogether  born  in 

sin,”  they  reply,  “  and  dost  thou  teach  us?  ”  And 
they  cast  him  out. 

In  a  lonely  place,  somewhere  outside  the  walls, 
he  wanders  with  the  anathema  upon  him.  Out¬ 
cast  and  excommunicate,  who  will  venture  now  to 
lend  a  hand  or  put  a  cup  of  water  to  his  thirsty 
lips? 

Jesus  finds  him.  O  blessed  seeker  of  the  lost! 
He  asks,  “  Dost  thou  believe  on  the  Son  of  God?  ” 
A  strange  question,  when  one  stops  to  think  of  it; 
so  apparently  abrupt  and  inconsequential.  Why 
not,  rather,  a  word  of  sympathy  and  encourage¬ 
ment?  No;  the  question  cannot  wait.  It  never 
can  wait.  It  presses  hard  upon  every  one  of  us 


28 


THE  FAITH  THAT  COUNTS 


for  an  immediate  answer,  because  the  issues  of  life 
are  involved  in  it. — “  Who  is  he,  Lord,”  asks  the 
beggar,  “  that  I  might  believe  on  him?  ” — “  Thou 
hast  both  seen  him  and  he  it  is  that  talketh  with 
thee.” — “Lord,  I  believe!”  And  he  worships 
Him. 

So  ends  the  drama.  A  seeking  sinner  always 
finds  a  seeking  Saviour;  and  the  turning-point  of 
every  life  is  reached  just  here.  “  Dost  thou  be¬ 
lieve  in  the  Son  of  God  ?  ”  It  is  distinctly  a  per¬ 
sonal  question ;  “  Dost  thou  ?  ”  Every  man  must 
answer  it  for  himself.  It  cannot  be  farmed  out; 
it  cannot  be  postponed  until  a  more  convenient 
season;  it  cannot  be  evaded,  since  not  to  believe  is 
to  believe  not. 

This  being  so,  it  is  vitally  important  that  we 
should  understand  precisely  what  is  meant  by  “  be¬ 
lieving  in  the  Son  of  God.” 


The  Christ  of  Long  Agg 

To  begin  with,  it  does  not  mean  simply  to  be¬ 
lieve  in  the  historic  Christ;  that  is,  in  a  personage 
who  lived,  suffered  and  died  nineteen  hundred 
years  ago.  So  far  as  that  goes,  everybody  believes ; 
just  as  everybody  believes  in  Julius  Csesar  and 
Napoleon;  but  nobody  is  morally  or  spiritually  af¬ 
fected  by  it.  Obviously  this  sort  of  faith  is  only 
a  door  ajar,  which  may  or  may  not  be  pushed  open 
into  something  further  on. 


DAVID  JAMES  BURRELL 


29 


The  Best  of  Men 

And  again  it  means  more  than  to  believe  that 
Jesus  was  a  superman.  Everybody  believes  that 
too.  Pilate  even,  who  sentenced  Him  to  death, 
confessed,  “  I  find  no  fault  in  him  at  all,”  and  the 
centurion  who  had  charge  of  His  crucifixion  said, 
“  Verily  this  was  a  righteous  man.”  Some  of  the 
most  glowing  tributes  ever  paid  to  Jesus  as  a  mere 
man  have  been  uttered  by  men  like  Goethe  and 
Channing,  David  Strauss  and  Ernest  Renan  and 
John  Stuart  Mill,  who  have  utterly  refused  to  ac¬ 
cept  His  superior  claims.  But  Jesus  declined  to  be 
honoured  that  way.  To  the  young  ruler  who  came 
running  to  Him  with  the  appeal,  “  Good  master, 
what  must  I  do  that  I  might  inherit  eternal  life  ?  ” 
His  answer  was,  “  Why  callest  thou  me  good  ? 
There  is  none  good  but  one,  that  is  God ;  ”  which 
could  only  mean  that  the  young  man  must  either 
go  further  or  go  back;  must  acknowledge  that 
Jesus  was  what  He  insistently  claimed  to  be  or  else 
pronounce  Him  a  deceiver  and  a  charlatan.  There 
is  no  middle  ground  to  stand  on. 


The  Great  Teacher 

For  another  thing,  it  is  not  enough  to  believe  in 
Him  as  a  super-eminent  teacher,  the  peer  of  Plato 
and  Seneca  and  Marcus  Aurelius;  or  even  as  a 
greater  than  them  all.  The  Roman  guard  that  was 
sent  to  arrest  Him  as  He  was  teaching  in  Solomon’s 


30 


THE  FAITH  THAT  COUNTS 


Porch  came  back  empty-handed  and  with  nothing 
better  to  say  for  themselves  than,  “  Never  man 
spake  like  this  man!  ”  The  teaching  of  Jesus  has 
overawed  His  enemies  time  without  number. 
Listen  to  Theodore  Parker:  “  He  pours  out  a 
doctrine  beautiful  as  the  light,  sublime  as  heaven 
and  true  as  God!,,  But  what  of  it?  Even 
orthodoxy  has  no  saving  power,  unless  it  grips 
more  than  one’s  intellectuals.  A  man  may  know 
his  Bible  “  by  heart  ”  without  getting  it  into  his 
heart  or  having  his  life  affected  by  it. 

The  Thaumaturge 

Still  further,  the  faith  that  really  counts  must 
do  more  than  accept  Jesus  as  a  wonder-worker. 
His  miracles  were  unquestioned  by  those  who  hated 
and  crucified  Him;  but  again  what  of  it?  The 
Bible  affirms  that  Moses  wrought  miracles  too;  a 
fact  that  everybody  accepts  (barring  the  anti- 
biblical  critics,  of  course,  who  are  willing  to  believe 
anything  so  long  as  the  Bible  does  not  say  it),  but 
that  fact  has  only  the  most  remote  connection  with 
the  business  at  hand.  The  important  question  is 
whether  Jesus  is  able  to  save.  Nicodemus  the 
rabbi  was  frank  to  confess  that  Jesus  was  “a 
teacher  come  from  God,”  because,  as  he  said,  “  no 
man  could  do  the  miracles  which  thou  doest  ex¬ 
cept  God  were  with  him;”  but  when  Jesus  told 
him  that  he  “must  be  born  again,”  he  staggered 
with  unbelief,  crying,  “  How  can  these  things  be?  ” 


DAVID  JAMES  BUEEELL 


31 


A  Son  of  God 

Well  then,  suppose  a  man  believes  ^in  Jesus  as  a 
Son  of  God — will  that  answer?  By  no  means.. 
We  are  constantly  reminded  that  “  there  are  many 
sons  of  God.”  The  definite  article  “  the  ”  sets 
Jesus  apart  from  all  others  as  a  singular  Son  of 
God.  “Behold,”  says  John,'  “what  manner  of 
love  the  Father  hath  bestowed  upon  us  that  we 
should  be  called  sons  of  God ;  ”  but  our  sonship 
is  by  adoption  while  that  of  Jesus  is  by  a  divine 
begetting,  or  as  the  old  time  theologians  used  to  ^ 
say,  “  by  an  eternal  generation.”  If  the  Scriptural 
account  of  the  virgin  birth  be  rejected,  it  follows 
that  He,  like  shorn  Samson,  is  “  weak  as  other 
men ;  ”  in  which  case  He  is  no  longer  the  mighty 
to  save.  This  involves  a  denial  of  the  claim  for 
which  He  suffered  death,  namely,  that  He  was 
“  equal  with  God.”  - 

/ 

The  Son  of  God 

It  thus  appears,  by  a  process  of  elimination,  that 
we  are  to  believe  in  Jesus  as  the  only  begotten  Son 
of  God.  Will  that,  then,  make  our  calling  and 
election  sure?  Not  yet.  One  may  consent  that 
the  Child  in  the  manger  was  “  God  manifest  in 
flesh ;  ”  that  the  sufferer  on  the  cross  was  “  tasting 
death  for  every  man;  ”  that  the  miracle  in  Joseph's 
garden  was  a  real  triumph  over  death;  and  that 
the  ascension  of  Jesus  was  a  veritable  return  to 


32 


THE  FAITH  THAT  COUNTS 


“  the  glory  which  he  had  with  the  Father  before 
the  world  was,”  without  being  vitally  affected  by 
it.  An  intellectual  apprehension  of  truth,  based  on 
incontrovertible  evidence,  not  infrequently  leaves 
the  soul  as  unmoved  as  are  the  depths  of  the  sea 
by  the  winds  that  blow  over  and  ruffle  it.  * 

My  Saviour 

The  only  faith  that  makes  for  salvation  is  the 
faith  that  appropriates.  The  word  “  thou  ”  in  our 
Lord’s  question  takes  in  the  whole  man:  mind,  con¬ 
science,  heart  and  will.  This  makes  the  objective 
Christ  a  subjective  reality.  One  must  so  believe 
on  Him  as  to  be  able  to  say,  “  My  Lord,  my  life, 
my  sacrifice,  my  Saviour  and  my  all.”  Or  to  use 
Luther’s  words,  “  It  is  the  first  personal  pronoun 
possessive  that  brings  us  into  vital  harmony  with 
God.”  This  is  what  Jesus  meant  when  He  said, 
“  Except  ye  eat  the  flesh  and  drink  the  blood  of  the 
Son  of  Man,  ye  have  no  life  in  you;  ”  that  is,  He' 
must  be  so  received  as  to  enter  into  our  whole 
being,  precisely  as  our  food  is  assimilated  and 
transmuted  into  nerve  and  sinew  and  thought  and 
character  and  usefulness.  The  result  is  such  a 
blending  of  personalities  that  the  believer  is  able  to 
say  with  Paul,  “  It  is  no  longer  I  that  live  but 
Christ  liveth  in  me;  for  the  life  which  I  now  live 
is  by  faith  in  the  Son  of  God  who  loved  me  and 
gave  himself  for  me.” 


DAVID  JAMES  BURRELL 


33 


“  Son  of  God,  to  Thee  I  cry : 

By  the  holy  mystery 

Of  Thy  dwelling  here  on  earth, 

By  Thy  pure  and  holy  birth. 

Lord,  Thy  presence  let  me  see. 

Manifest  Thyself  to  me  !  ” 

How  may  we  know  that  we  thus  believe  in 
Him  ?  The  test  is  worship ;  not  lip-service  but  the 
consecration  of  time,  energy  and  self  itself  to 
Christ.  A  man  is  adjudged  a  good  citizen  not  by 
his  ability  to  sing  “  My  country  ’tis  of  thee  ”  but 
by  his  whole-hearted  accord  with  everything  that 
makes  our  Republic  what  it  is.  Repeating  a  Creed 
is  a  very  different  thing  from  Relieving  it. 
Thomas  was  a  disciple  of  Jesus  long  before  he 
really  appreheiMed  Him.  It  was  not  until  with 
open  eyes  beholding  he  saw  the  nail-prints  in  the 
hands  of  the  living  Christ,  that  he  came  to  believe 
in  Jesus  as  what  He  claimed  to  be  and  therefore 
able  to  save;  then  he  worshipped  with  the  cry, 
“  My  Lord  and  my  God !  ”  The  same  was  true  of 
Luther  who  was  years  old  in  monkhood  when, 
under  the  Crucifix  of  the  Monastery  at  Erfurt,  he 
cried,  with  tears  in  his  throat,  “  Fur  mich,  fur 
mich ;  He  died  for  me !  ”  This,  and  nothing  short 
of  it,  is  to  believe  in  Him. 

Is  any  one  asking,  “  Where  is  He,  that  I  might 
thus  believe  on  Him  ?  ”  The  answer  is,  “  Thou 
hast  already  seen  him  and  he  it  is  that  talketh  with 
thee.”  I  see  Him  now  coming  down  the  aisle 


34 


THE  FAITH  THAT  COUNTS 


yonder,  mounting  the  pulpit  steps  and  pausing  here 
beside  me.  Let  me  be  silent  while  He  speaks, 
“  Dost  thou  believe  on  the  Son  of  God ;  thou  for 
whom  I  have  waited  until  my  locks  are  wet  with 
the  drops  of  night?  Thou  hast  long  believed  about 
me ;  wilt  thou  go  further  and  believe  on  me  ?  Then 
shall  we  sup  together  and  thy  voice  tremble  with 
the  joy  of  a  new  confession,  ‘  I  know  whom  I 
have  believed  and  am  persuaded  that  he  is  able  to 
keep  that  which  I  have  committed  unto  him  until 
the  day  when  I  shall  meet  him  in  glory  and  see  him 
as  he  is.'  ” 


Ill 


FAITH’S  CORONATION 

By 

SAMUEL  PARKES  CADMAN,  D.  D.,  S.  T.  D. 

Pastor  Central  Congregational  Churchy 
Brooklyn ,  N.  Y. 


Samuel  Parkes  Cadman  was  born  in  Shropshire, 
England,  December  18,  1864,  and  was  graduated 
from  Richmond  College,  London  University  in  1889. 
Coming  to  America  in  1890,  he  was  appointed 
Pastor  of  the  Metropolitan  Temple,  New  York 
City,  in  1895.  From  this  pastorate  he  was  called  to 
Central  Congregational  Church,  Brooklyn.  Dr.  Cad¬ 
man  is  the  humanist  among  American  Congregational 
divines.  He  possesses  in  a  rare  manner  both  evan¬ 
gelical  fervour  and  profound  learning.  Both  in  the 
pulpit  and  on  the  platform,  Dr.  Cadman  stands  in  a 
class  of  his  own,  and  no  one  in  this  generation  has 
accomplished  more  in  welding  bonds  of  friendship 
between  America  and  Great  Britain.  Dr.  Cadman 
has  written  several  very  important  books;  chief 
among  his  published  works  are:  The  Three  Re¬ 
ligious  Leaders  of  Oxford,  Ambassadors  of  God 
and  Lectures  on  Church  and  State  (in  the  press). 


I 


III 

FAITH'S  CORONATION 


“ Now  the  end  of  the  commandment  ( charge )  is 
love  out  of  a  pure  heart  and  of  a  good  conscience 
ana  of  faith  unfeigned” — i  Timothy  i  :  5. 


I 


THE  charge  which  St.  Paul  commissioned 
St.  Timothy  to  lay  upon  the  Church  at 
Ephesus  was  meant  to  veto  those  useless 
speculations  and  controversies  which  injured  the 
fraternity  of  the  sacred  household.  Fine  spun 
allegories,  fabulous  recitals  of  the  generation  and 
gradation  of  the  angelic  hosts,  the  arithmetic  of 
mysterious  aeons,  and  lurid  predictions  of  apoca¬ 
lypses,  then,  as  now,  had  a  strange  fascination  for 
a  certain  type  of  believers.  They  wTere  too  pre¬ 
occupied  with  vain  debates  upon  inexplicable 
themes  to  give  heed  to  the  real  ends  of  religion. 
Evangelical  discretion  was  at  the  mercy  of 
zealots,  who  identified  divine  truth  with  their 
distorted  notions,  making  them  the  test  of 
spiritual  understanding.  In  order  that  the  grow¬ 
ing  evil  should  be  eliminated  the  Apostle  de¬ 
fined  the  outstanding  purpose  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  gospel  as  a  salvatory  education.  His  lan¬ 
guage  is  axiomatic,  precise,  compressed ;  erroneous 

37 


38 


FAITH’S  CORONATION 


or  perverse  constructions  find  no  opening  in  his 
closely  woven  arguments.  Both  matter  and  words 
express  the  wisdom  of  a  profound  religious  ex¬ 
perience.  They  rank  as  a  classic  utterance  em¬ 
bodying  the  aims  of  Christian  being  and  its  obli¬ 
gations.  According  to  them  the  heart’s  pure  love 
begins  and  continues  in  faith  unfeigned.  The 
power  that  surpasses  any  other;  the  one  power  in 
this  world  and  the  world  beyond  which  is 
superior  to  the  creeds,  or  better  still,  behind 
them,  is  the  love  herein  named.  The  love  that 
gives  and  does  not  ask,  and  being  denied,  still  loves 
with  joy  and  gladness.  In  their  deepest  selves, 
men  and  women  know  that  this  love  is  the  grand 
reality  of  life,  infinitely  more  substantial  and  au¬ 
thoritative  than  all  objects  of  sensory  perception. 

Yet  neither  this  love  nor  any  other  ordination 
of  Heaven  can  possess  our  souls  without  the  royal 
faculty  of  faith.  Believers  can  be  and  do  nothing 
worthy  of  their  calling  apart  from  the  vitalizing 
energy  of  faith  as  the  gift  of  God.  Where  it  is 
complete  it  hallows  every  profession  of  allegiance 
to  our  Lord  and  Redeemer;  where  it  is  defective, 
the  development  of  the  hidden  man  of  the  heart  is 
arrested.  Rectitude  of  conscience  and  of  conduct 
is  secured  by  faith  unfeigned.  The  motives  and 
thoughts  which  lie  far  and  remote  in  human  na¬ 
ture  are  regulated  by  it.  They,  too,  own  the  sway 
of  a  divine  and  unfaltering  faith.  Affectation, 
pretense,  caprice,  deference  to  conventionality,  and 


S.  PABKES  CADMAN 


39 


even  superstition  or  hypocrisy  cannot  defile  the 
heritage  of  an  undivided  faith  fixed  upon  its  giver. 
But  once  this  faith  languishes,  the  weaknesses 
which  simulate  it  speedily  appear,  evoking  re¬ 
ligious  disaster. 

Such  a  disaster  fell  upon  ancient  Israel  and 
wrecked  her  usefulness  to  mankind.  The  prophet 
was  displaced  by  the  pharisee,  and  the  interpreter 
by  the  scribe.  These  ardent  advocates  of  Judaism 
suffered,  not  from  secular  but  from  religious 
skepticism;  from  disproportionate  emphasis  and 
confusion  of  sign  with  substance.  Their  outward 
pieties  were  ostentatious  and  austere.  They  loved 
to  offer  their  endless  prayers  before  the  public 
eye.  But  these  devotions  were  symptomatic  of 
spiritual  degeneracy.  Excessive  ceremonialisms, 
fastings  for  which  sour  faces  were  the  bulletins; 
almsgiving  to  the  tune  of  the  trumpet’s  blare,  and 
slavish  adherence  to  outworn  traditions  were  the 
trappings  of  Judaism’s  death.  Shallow  egotism 
and  self-complacent  arrogance  marked  its  predomi¬ 
nant  tribe  of  religionists.  Nor  is  the  tribe  extinct 
to-day.  It  still  troubles  God’s  Commonwealth,  pa¬ 
rading  the  insignia  which  denote  the  bigot  and  the 
formalist  who  thank  Heaven  they  are  not  as  other 
men  are ;  who  would  willingly  surrender  the  spirit 
of  the  Evangel  to  its  letter,  and  the  essences  of 
Christian  doctrine  to  their  rituals.  The  pagan 
world  of  the  period  was  also  congenial  to  artificial¬ 
ity  in  religion.  Its  numerous  cults  were  diversified 


40 


FAITH’S  CORONATION 


as  to  tenets,  but  alike  in  their  utter  failure  to  ap¬ 
prehend  religious  realities.  Long  after  life  had 
gone  out  of  them,  and  their  sterility  was  notorious, 
they  retained  popular  approval  and  enjoyed  na¬ 
tional  patronage.  Temples  arose  in  profusion  to 
celebrate  legends  which  cultured  Greeks  and 
Romans  mocked,  and  the  proletariat  despised. 
The  moments  of  solemn  insight,  the  passports  to 
justice  and  compassion,  which  one  finds  in  Plato 
and  Marcus  Aurelius,  were  now  foreign  to  the 
pagan  habit.  Its  soul,  like  that  of  Israel,  was 
smothered  beneath  the  pressure  of  a  stately  ex- 
ternalism.  What  happened  then,  and  did  not  spare 
the  chosen  race,  may  happen  now,  and  is  well 
within  the  realm  of  possibility.  Every  generation 
must  itself  transmit  the  creative  forces  which  be¬ 
get  real  religion,  intellectually  conceived,  morally 
exemplified,  culminating  in  that  love  which  is  the 
height  of  good  and  hate  of  ill;  the  triumph  of 
truth,  and  falsehood’s  overthrow. 

II 

The  theological  training  of  seminaries  and  col¬ 
leges  does  not  impart  faith  unfeigned.  Be  that 
training  liberal  or  conservative,  it  is  necessarily 
secondary,  and  has  been  overestimated  in  the 
Church.  The  gifts  of  God  are  not  commandeered 
by  instructors,  however  sincere  or  erudite.  I  fore¬ 
see  in  saying  this,  the  complaints  of  critical  minds 
which  can  scarcely  conceive  the  oceanic  power  be- 


S.  PAEKES  CADMAN 


41 


hind  the  faith  St.  Paul  honours.  Nevertheless,  it 
is  always  originative  of  the  best  in  particular 
doctrinal  systems.  These  have  their  day  and  cease 
to  be.  But  the  faith  which  is  a  part  of  God's 
predetermination  for  mankind  produces  its  own 
intellectual  fabric  and  makes  the  pace  for  man’s 
enlarging  knowledge  of  the  world.  It  will  not  be 
found  flat,  stale,  unprofitable.  No  branch  of 
learned  inquiry  will  successfully  challenge  its 
supremacy.  It  is  purposive  as  well  as  creative, 
and  finds  its  vindication  in  the  character  it  shapes 
and  the  civilization  it  promotes.  We  shall  not 
be  vexed  with  doubts  about  the  hazards  of  the 
Church  and  her  embassies  when  such  faith  has 
control  in  us.  If  theological  research  puts  re¬ 
ligious  realities  from  old  or  new  standpoints,  and 
with  more  accurate  technique,  its  results  should 
be  gratefully  accepted.  But  it  is  sheer  imperti¬ 
nence  and,  in  some  instances,  revolt  against  New 
Testament  Christianity,  to  declare  that  its  fate  is 
involved  in  the  welter  of  human  opinions  about  it. 

Broadly  speaking,  one  has  good  reason  to  ques¬ 
tion  those  forms  of  Christianity  which  have  been 
too  much  influenced  by  contemporary  opinion,  be 
it  either  reactionary  or  progressive.  While  fac- 
tionists  contend  for  the  merits  of  their  respective 
systems,  their  regenerative  capacity  is  apt  to  di¬ 
minish.  It  may  be  urged  that  the  collective  judg¬ 
ments  of  earnest  men  are  of  considerable  value. 
Do  they  not  suppress  notorious  wrongs,  refine  .so- 


42 


FAITH’S  CORONATION 


cial  customs  and  upraise  the  public  mind?  Cer¬ 
tainly  these  achievements  are  listed  to  their  credit. 
But  faith  unfeigned  is  not  brought  into  being  by 
religious  views  and  counter  views.  It  rests  on  no 
human  foundations:  least  of  all  on  those  fissured 
by  controversy.  It  is  neither  mimetic  nor  differ¬ 
ential.  It  owns  and  is  not  owned  by  the  historic 
personalities  of  Christian  annals.  Its  manifesta¬ 
tions  in  the  building  of  the  Church  and  of  decently 
behaved  States  have  not  always  followed  pre¬ 
scribed  paths.  Coming,  as  it  does,  directly  from 
God  through  Christ,  “  faith  unfeigned  ”  has  fre¬ 
quently  confounded  the  wisdom  of  the  wise  and 
rebuked  the  passions  of  the  simple. 

Its  light  has  shone  forth  in  unsuspected  spots 
and  through  apparently  feeble  agents.  Yet  men’s 
perceptions  were  enlightened,  their  affections 
sweetened,  their  ethics  and  their  conduct  purified. 
Skin-deep  inoculations  which  had  been  substitutes 
for  the  transforming  power  of  this  faith  were 
swept  away  because  of  their  inadequacy  to  meet 
the  demands  of  human  life.  The  beliefs  assumed 
for  the  sake  of  intellectual  consistency  were 
promptly  discarded,  for  intellectualism  often 
changes  its  fashion,  and  indeed  is  rapidly  changing 
it  now.  But  the  God-given  trust  fastened  on 
eternal  realities  does  not  have  to  change.  It  is  in¬ 
dependent  of  the  clearest  and  most  cogent  brains; 
and  as  available  for  all  creatures  as  air  or  light. 
The  believer  who  is  wise  enough  to  rest  his  soul 


S.  PARKES  CADMAN 


43 


on  God  as  revealed  in  His  Son  reflects  upon  the 
immensity  of  the  past,  the  littleness  of  the  present, 
the  boundlessness  of  the  future;  upon  the  Deity 
before  whom  time  and  space  are  as  nothing.  He 
centers  his  hope  on  the  Everlasting;  the  Ever 
Present  One,  from  whom  all  life,  strength  and  re¬ 
demption  proceed.  His  self-manifestation  in  our 
Blessed  Lord  sustains  every  Christian  against  the 
dominancy  of  temporal  things.  He  does  not  think 
of  death  as  the  worst  possible,  as  do  the  unbe¬ 
lieving.  Regions  beyond  the  grave  are  no  terrible 
void  for  him.  The  heathen  rage,  the  people  in 
their  self-adulation  imagine  a  vain  thing.  But 
faith  unfeigned  raises  its  subjects  above  the  sensi¬ 
ble  universe,  enables  them  to  break  its  thrall,  and 
to  go  forward  confidently  to  the  destiny  awaiting 
them.  Only  those  who  put  the  seen  before  the 
unseen,  gain  before  righteousness,  baseness  before 
nobleness  and  pleasure  before  their  Maker,  will 
deny  this  position.  The  Ruler  of  life  and  death, 
of  judgment  and  eternity,  is  the  disposer  of  faith 
unfeigned.  Who  is  on  His  side?  Who'  shall 
stand  when  He  appears  ? 

Ill 

Some  recent  crusades  in  Protestantism  assert 
that  Christian  faith  is  an  epidemic  which  spreads 
from  soul  to  soul  by  means  of  associations  sur¬ 
charged  with  surface  excitement.  Fellowship 
stimulates  religious  beliefs  and  interests.  But  it 


44 


FAITH’S  CORONATION 


is  the  individual  alone  in  his  or  her  own  personal 
contact  with  the  Spirit  of  the  Living  God  who 
receives  vitalizing  faith.  The  operations  of  the 
Spirit  should  not  be  discounted  by  the  press  of  the 
multitude.  He  prefers  to  deal  with  the  man,  not 
the  mass.  Devices  for  capturing  the  one  through 
the  many  are  not  sure  of  His  approval.  They 
may  be  legitimate  or  again,  as  not  a  few  are,  ille¬ 
gitimate.  Meanwhile  the  modest  God  delights  to 
dwell  in  the  single  heart  and  there  He  witnesses 
of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  of  a  judgment  to 
come.  He  is  the  great  companion  of  conscience, 
memory,  and  will,  and  none  but  He  has  the  pass¬ 
key  to  the  throne  room  of  the  soul.  He  unveils 
the  bliss,  the  burden,  the  rapture,  and  the  affliction 
of  that  mind  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus.  Through 
Him  the  attributes  of  human  nature  are  harmo¬ 
nized  with  the  Divine  will.  If  you  ask  for  a  token 
of  His  indwelling,  its  chief  evidence  is  in  your 
penitential  attitude.  Contrition  is  His  hall-mark, 
and  its  painfulness  is  the  birth  pang  of  your  re¬ 
generate  being.  Those  who  deem  iniquity  a  trifle, 
retribution  an  open  question,  goodness  a  matter  of 
environment  or  of  education,  and  evil  habits  no 
more  than  a  reaction  from  irrestrainable  tenden¬ 
cies,  may  escape  the  Spirit’s  searching  for  a  time, 
but  they  never  escape  beggary  of  soul  and  moral 
destitution. 

Their  ideas  of  life  are  altogether  too  meager  for 
its  necessities.  Nothing  of  lasting  significance 


S.  PARKES  0 ADMAN 


45 


pivots  on  them  or  on  what  they  think.  Their 
capacity  for  ever  enlarging  blessedness  is  nullified 
by  their  alliance  with  the  perishable  elements  of 
existence.  On  the  other  hand,  the  faith  which 
fosters  in  us  the  sense  of  immortality  and  con¬ 
strains  us  to  shape  our  course  accordingly  is  in¬ 
evitably  triumphant.  It  is  not  a  speculation,  nor 
a  theory,  nor  a  concession  to  what  is  seemly. 
These,  if  they  exist  at  all,  are  its  accidents.  At 
the  core  it  is  the  throb  in  men  of  the  heart  of 
honour  and  of  fire  at  the  center  of  all  things:  the 
divine  dynamic  which  drives  life  toward  its 
ascertainable  and  best  ends. 

Sophistications  do  not  disfigure  the  mind  which 
seeks,  not  only  knowledge,  but  wisdom  in  religious 
competency  and  sacrificial  duty.  Fidelity  to  God  is 
expressed  in  the  purpose  to  discover  what  is  truly 
religious  as  finally  reasonable  and  to  believe  that 
those  who  deny  either  are  in  peril  of  being  neither. 
In  this  concord,  the  transient  and  segmental  experi¬ 
ences  of  a  mutilated  trust  are  unknown.  Faith  is 
normal,  and  habitual  because  the  acts  comprised  in 
the  sum  total  of  a  human  life  are  responsive  to  one 
Presence  and  its  rule.  Midway  between  faith’s 
germinal  activities  and  the  pure  love  which  crowns 
them  is  a  good  conscience,  standardized  by  the 
spirit  and  teaching  of  the  Master.  Its  most  exact¬ 
ing  requirements  receive  their  sanction  from  faith 
as  the  receptive  faculty  of  God’s  illumination. 
This  conscience  is  not  content  to  be  righteous; 


46 


FAITH’S  CORONATION 


commendable  as  that  is;  it  is  also  the  conscience 
of  pity  which  modifies  the  tenets  of  justice  with 
the  precepts  of  benevolence.  It  welcomes  the 
highest  ethic  of  sacrificial  service  and  holds  to  holi¬ 
ness  as  more  desirable  even  than  righteousness. 
The  fruits  of  holiness  cannot  but  be  excellent  for 
the  faith  unfeigned  which  makes  the  Christian 
conscience  alert,  discriminative,  ready  to  respond 
to  every  impulse,  not  only  of  law  but  of  grace. 
It  spurns  the  compromises  which  plague  moral 
vigour.  As  the  sun-bathed  branch  connects  the 
root  in  the  soil  beneath  with  the  luscious  clusters 
of  the  vine  above,  so  conscience  connects  the  ten- 
derest  and  purest  love  with  the  natural  affections 
from  which  it  springs.  This  truth  explains  in  a 
measure  St.  Paul’s  distinction  between  the 
“  righteous  ”  and  the  “  good  ”  man. 


IV 

Lastly,  God’s  purpose  is  to  educe  in  His  children 
the  spiritual  abandonment  of  Christian  love.  Its 
chief  limitation  is  imposed  upon  it  by  playing  off 
the  will  against  the  affections  and  the  intellect 
against  the  conscience.  St.  Paul  forewarns  us 
against  the  chaos  in  which  one  faculty  hoodwinks 
another.  Their  harmony  by  faith’s  free,  full  ex¬ 
ercise  is  the  distinctive  note  of  the  text.  When 
this  is  gained,  the  clouds  disperse,  the  shadows 


S.  PARKES  C ADMAN 


47 


flee;  the  whole  man  rejoices  in  a  divine  life  and 
law  to  which  every  member  of  his  being  yields 
cheerful  obedience. 

Mere  emotionalism  is  barred;  intellectual  effort 
subserves  spiritual  liberty,  and  charity,  the  life¬ 
blood  of  creeds  and  churches,  becomes  the  perfect¬ 
ness  of  faith.  It  is  needless  to  remark  that  much 
called  love  is  veneered  selfishness,  covert  gross¬ 
ness,  masked  anarchy.  But  this  love,  of  which 
St.  Paul’s  soul  was  full  to  overflowing,  comes 
from  the  nature  which  God  has  revealed  in 
Christ.  Currents  of  feeling  that  assume  its  title 
often  carry  in  solution  the  taint  of  moral  squalor, 
the  subtle  poison  of  spiritual  death.  It  has  to  be 
defined  by  one’s  experience  and  demonstrated  by 
one’s  deeds.  These  together  aim  to  confer  the 
best  upon  the  worst  by  bringing  all  men  and 
women  whom  that  love  can  reach  within  its  radius. 
Because  it  holds  the  sinner  very  dear  to  God  it  is 
not  likely  to  be  a  smiling  affability.  Politic  affini¬ 
ties  and  honeyed  phrases  which  nourish  desire  at 
the  cost  of  character  do  not  become  its  ministry 
to  mankind.  The  parading  of  what  is  con¬ 
venient  or  practicable  or  materially  profitable  as 
Christian  love  will  not  mislead  those  who 
have  bowed  at  the  Cross  and  there  tasted  the 
grace  of  God.  Unfeigned  faith  is  its  parent,  con¬ 
science  is  its  preceptor,  a  purified  heart  the  center 
from  which  it  issues  to  bless  its  surroundings. 
None  of  them  is  dispensable,  and  all  their  springs 


48 


FAITH’S  CORONATION 


are  in  God.  W e  are  here  dealing  with  the  discerner 
of  hearts  who  is  intent  upon  our  fitness  for  His 
fellowship.  We  speak  of  the  love  He  had  for  us 
when  He  sent  the  Saviour  of  the  world  to  Bethle¬ 
hem  and  to  Calvary.  “  Behold !  what  manner  of 
love  the  Father  hath  toward  us  that  we  should  be 
called  the  sons  of  God,”  exclaimed  St.  John.  It 
should  be  as  altruistic  in  us  as  it  was  in  the  Master. 
Then  the  souls  of  the  believers  and  the  soul  of  the 
Church  Universal  alike  shall  be  as  a  sea  of  glass 
mingled  with  fire,  embracing  peace  and  power,  re¬ 
plete  of  force  without  waste,  and  of  tranquillity 
with  fervour. 

The  scenes  of  earthly  circumstance  which  be¬ 
longed  to  the  Roman  Empire  when  St.  Paul  wrote 
these  words  have  vanished  forever.  The  chariots 
of  gold  and  silver,  the  pomp,  the  warriors,  the 
pageants,  the  millions  of  followers  drunk  with  the 
cup  of  abominations,  have  become  as  though  they 
had  not  been.  Wantonness,  insolence  and  pride 
have  passed  with  that  corrupted  world.  The 
avenging  gates  have  closed  on  them.  The  Temple 
at  Jerusalem  has  shared  their  doom.  But  the  truth 
of  this  text  continues  as  an  everlasting  testimony 
to  the  Gospel  which  ministers  to  our  penitence  and 
our  hope.  Let  us  cling  to  its  simplicity  as  the  life 
of  God  in  the  souls  of  men,  made  known  by  faith 
unfeigned,  by  intellectual  honesty,  by  the  warrant 
of  a  conscience  void  of  offense  toward  God  and 
man,  by  the  love  which  is  faith’s  coronation. 


IV 

PROCRASTINATION 

By 

HARRY  EMERSON  FOSDICK,  D.  D., 

Special  Preacher ,  First  Presbyterian  Church , 

New  York 


Harry  Emerson  Fosdick  was  born  in  Buffalo, 
N.  Y.,  May  28,  1878.  He  received  his  education  at 
Colgate  University  and  Union  Theological  Seminary. 
In  1903  he  was  ordained  a  Baptist  minister  and  in 
1904  he  began  his  eleven-year  pastorate  at  the  First 
Baptist  Church,  Montclair,  N.  J.  In  1908,  Dr.  Fos¬ 
dick  was  made  Instructor  in  Homiletics  at  Union 
Theological  Seminary  and  in  1915,  Professor  of 
Practical  Theology.  Since  January,  1919,  he  has 
acted  in  the  capacity  of  Special  Preacher  of  First 
Presbyterian  Church,  New  York.  During  the  sum¬ 
mer  of  1921,  Dr.  Fosdick  addressed  conventions  of 
missionaries  in  China  and  Japan.  In  his  present 
pulpit  he  preaches  to  one  of  the  most  influential  audi¬ 
ences  to  be  found  anywhere  in  America.  Among 
Dr.  Fosdick’s  exceedingly  popular  books  must  be 
mentioned:  The  Meaning  of  Prayer,  The  Meaning 
of  Faith,  The  Meaning  of  Service,  and  Christianity 
and  Progress . 


IV 


PROCRASTINATION 

“  When  I  have  a  convenient  season,  1  will  call  thee 
unto  me.” — Acts  24:25. 

WE  are  to  think  this  morning  about  the 
homely  and  familiar  matter  of  pro¬ 
crastination.  Instead  of  letting  our 
thoughts  dwell  upon  that  abstract  noun  let  us  from 
the  beginning  have  in  our  mind’s  eye  a  concrete 
picture  from  the  life  of  Paul.  Paul  had  been 
mobbed  and  nearly  killed  by  his  fellow  countrymen 
in  Jerusalem;  and,  saved  only  by  the  intervention 
of  the  Roman  soldiery,  he  soon  found  himself  in 
prison  in  Caesarea,  where  he  had  been  taken  to 
escape  lynching.  There  Felix,  the  governor,  was 
alike  his  jailer  and  his  judge.  One  night  when  the 
governor’s  wife,  Drusilla,  wished  to  hear  and  see 
this  tempestuous  and  troublesome  Jew,  Felix  had 
Paul  brought  before  him,  and  allowed  him  freedom 
to  speak.  One  might  have  thought  that  Paul’s 
spirit  would  have  been  tamed  by  his  perilous  ex¬ 
perience  ;  but  Paul  was  always  like  a  fire  that  is  not 
blown  out  but  fanned  to  a  fiercer  heat  when  the 
hard  winds  blow.  Let  the  twenty-fourth  chapter 
of  the  book  of  Acts  tell  us  the  simple  narrative: 
“  After  certain  days,  Felix  came  with  Drusilla,  his 
wife,  who  was  a  Jewess,  and  sent  for  Paul,  and 

5i 


52 


PROCRASTINATION 


heard  him  concerning  the  faith  in  Christ  Jesus. 
And  as  he  reasoned  of  righteousness,  and  self-con¬ 
trol,  and  the  judgment  to  come,  Felix  was  terrified, 
and  answered.  Go  thy  way  for  this  time;  and 
when  I  have  a  convenient  season,  I  will  call  thee 
unto  me.” 

Felix  is  one  of  the  most  unlovely  characters  in 
Scripture,  and  all  that  we  know  of  him  outside  of 
Scripture  simply  deepens  our  distaste  for  him.  Yet 
it  is  apparent  from  this  experience  of  his  with  Paul 
that  like  all  the  rest  of  us  he  was  a  strange  com¬ 
bination  of  good  and  bad,  that  deep  in  his  heart 
he  had  chords  that  the  fine,  strong  fingers  of  a 
personality  like  Paul  persuasively  could  play  upon. 
Bad  as  he  was,  let  us  remember  that  there  was  one 
time  when  he  heard  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  and  was 
stirred  by  it,  when  he  heard  great  words  about 
righteousness  and  self-control,  and  felt  their 
appeal,  when  he  looked  upon  his  life  and  the  end 
to  which  it  was  tending,  and  shrank  back  from  it. 
He  was  not  all  bad. 

This  morning  we  are  going  to  think  of  the  way 
he  dealt  with  this  significant  hour  with  the  apostle. 
You  will  notice  that  he  was  not  abusive  and  dis¬ 
courteous;  he  was  not  blasphemous  and  sceptical. 
He  merely  procrastinated.  He  simply  postponed 
decision;  he  politely  waved  the  matter  aside,  and 
said,  “  When  I  have  a  convenient  season,  I  will 
call  thee  unto  me”  And  so  he  lost  the  supreme 
opportunity  of  his  life. 


HAEEY  EMEESON  FOSDICK 


53 


Is  it  not  so  that  we  are  continually  making 
failures  of  our  lives?  Here  in  this  church,  where 
through  another  winter  we  have  so  repeatedly  pre¬ 
sented  appeals  for  the  Master,  for  the  type  and 
quality  of  spirit  which  He  represents,  for  the  con¬ 
crete  opportunities  of  service  which  His  cause 
offers,  one  does  not  suspect  that  there  has  been 
much  brusque  and  deliberate  rejection,  much  scorn¬ 
ful  and  contemptuous  scepticism;  but  one  does 
suspect  that  among  all  the  people  who  have 
gathered  here  there  must  have  been  a  great  deal  of 
procrastination.  It  is  so  popular  a  method  of 
avoidance.  It  can  be  indulged  in  so  easily  and 
without  offense.  How  many  times  in  this  church 
do  you  suppose  these  words  have  in  effect  been 
spoken  in  the  hearts  of  men:  “  Go  thy  way  for  this 
time ;  and  when  I  have  a  convenient  season,  I  will 
call  thee  unto  me  ”  ? 

We  are  all  perfectly  familiar  with  this  habit  of 
procrastination  in  practical  details.  We  do  not 
decide  not  to  answer  a  letter  from  a  friend.  We 
simply  postpone  answering  it.  We  take  it  up, 
and  dally  with  it,  and  lay  it  aside  for  a  more  con¬ 
venient  time.  We  do  not  decide  not  to  make  a 
call  that  ought  to  be  made.  We  merely  post¬ 
pone  making  it.  We  let  the  days  and  weeks 
pass;  and  ever,  as  we  postpone  it,  it  becomes 
easier  to  postpone  it  still,  until  at  last  the  call  is 
never  made  at  all.  We  never  decide  not  to  hear 
the  best  music  and  read  the  best  books.  We 


64 


PEOCEASTINATIQN 


merely  defer  doing  so.  We  comfort  our  con¬ 
sciences  by  saying,  “  Sometime  we  will  see  this  or 
hear  that.”  And  we  never  decide  not  to  pay 
serious  attention  to  the  religious  education  of  our 
children.  We  simply  put  it  off;  we  refer  it  to  this 
nebulous,  convenient  to-morrow  when  all  letters  are 
going  to  be  answered,  all  calls  made,  all  privileges 
enjoyed,  and  all  duties  done.  With  this  popular 
habit  of  procrastination  we  are  perfectly  familiar. 

But  surely  it  is  not  so  small  and  trivial  a  matter 
as  too  frequently  we  are  tempted  to  suppose. 
Leonardo  da  Vinci’s  picture  of  the  Last  Supper 
was  spoiled  by  a  single  broken  tile  through  which 
the  rain  poured  down  across  the  face  of  Christ.  So 
great  a  picture  to  be  spoiled  by  so  small  a  thing! 
Yet  after  many  years  of  watching  folk  from  the 
vantage-point  of  the  ministry  I  am  sure  that  many 
lives  are  spoiled  in  that  way,  and  that  the  broken 
tile  is  the  habit  of  procrastination. 

Pick  up  the  words  of  Felix  this  morning,  one  of 
the  classic  utterances  of  a  confirmed  procrastinator, 
and  look  into  them  until,  as  in  a  mirror,  they  re¬ 
veal  us  to  ourselves. 

First  of  all,  how  full  of  hope  they  are!  Felix 
is  counting  on  the  future.  “  A  more  convenient 
season,”  he  says  politely  to  Paul  as  he  bids  him 
good-night;  and  at  once  we  are  aware  that  pro¬ 
crastination  is  the  perversion  of  something  good. 
It  is  the  abuse  of  hope.  It  is  the  misuse  of  to¬ 
morrow.  Now,  to-morrow  is  one  of  God’s  best 


HARRY  EMERSON  FOSDICK 


55 


gifts  to  men.  The  animals  do  not  possess  it. 
They  have  only  to-day, — their  yesterdays  dim  and 
vague,  their  to-morrows  prepared  for  by  instinct, 
but  not  by  expectation, — but  man  has  yesterday 
and  to-day  and  to-morrow.  How  utterly  bereft 
we  all  Should  be  without  that  backreach  of  memory 
and  that  outreach  of  hope!  If  to-day  the  clouds 
overspread  our  sky,  to-morrow  the  sun  may  shine 
again.  If  to-day  sickness  has  invaded  our  homes, 
to-morrow  health  may  come  back  once  more.  If 
to-day  our  business  is  vexatious  and  troublesome, 
to-morrow  may  see  the  turning  of  the  tide  that  will 
bring  back  the  better  times.  If  to-day  our  tempta¬ 
tions  seem  insupportable,  to-morrow  we  may  find 
spiritual  power  to  overcome.  And  if  to-day  we 
are  cast  down  by  the  weariness  and  tragedy  of  this 
war-rent  mankind,  we  turn  to  a  prophet  to  en¬ 
courage  us  about  to-morrow:  “  My  own  hope  is, 
a  sun  will  pierce  the  thickest  cloud  earth  ever 
stretched.”  We  should  all  be  lost  without  to¬ 
morrow,  for  in  hope  we  are  saved. 

But  here,  as  always,  the  perversion  of  the  best 
is  the  worst,  and  the  perversion  of  to-morrow  is 
procrastination.  For  we  keep  putting  off  until  to¬ 
morrow  the  enjoyment  of  privileges  and  the  use  of 
opportunities  that  we  ought  to  rejoice  in  to-day. 
I  suspect  that  we  ministers  are  sometimes  partly 
responsible  for  this  very  attitude  against  which  I 
speak.  For  continually  we  plead  for  ideals  we  are 
sometime  to  realize  but  have  not  yet  attained ;  we 


56 


PROCRASTINATION 


urge  gains  in  personal  and  social  life  that  are  some¬ 
time  to  be  achieved,  but  are  not  yet  achieved.  We 
fill  in  the  picture  of  to-morrow  with  blessings  to 
be  enjoyed,  ideals  to  be  attained,  until  the  upshot 
may  be  that  we  draw  the  thought  of  our  people 
away  from  what  they  have  to-day  to  what  they 
may  have  to-morrow.  To-day  in  our  preaching 
becomes  too  often  something  to  be  overpassed  and 
outgrown,  but  to-morrow  is  the  home  of  fulfilled 
ideals.  There  is,  however,  a  serious  fallacy  in  this. 
We  need  continually  to  be  reminded  not  simply  of 
what  we  may  have  sometime,  but  of  what  we  do 
have  to-day. 

It  is  a  shame  to  see  a  man  running  across  his 
to-days  as  a  boy  runs  a  race,  with  his  eyes  tightly 
fixed  upon  the  far  goal,  thinking  only  of  what  lies 
ahead.  But  many  men  do  so  run  their  lives. 
“  To-morrow,”  they  cry,  while  all  the  time  to-day 
presents  to  them  privileges  and  blessings  that  they 
run  past,  not  seeing. 

“  Felix,  come  out  and  enjoy  the  sunset/’  and 
Felix  says,  “  To-morrow.”  But  to-morrow  the 
sunset  will  not  be  one  whit  more  beautiful  than  it 
is  to-day  if  we  have  eyes  to  see  it. 

“  Felix,  let  us  rejoice  in  friendship;  ”  and  Felix 
says,  “  To-morrow.”  But  friends  will  not  be  one 
bit  more  beautiful  to-morrow  than  they  are  to-day 
if  we  have  eyes  to  see  and  hearts  to  understand. 

“  Felix,  let  us  grow  up  with  our  children,  and 
even  here  on  earth  gain  a  foretaste  of  heaven  which 


HARRY  EMERSON  FOSDICK 


57 


a  true  home  affords.”  And  Felix  says,  “To¬ 
morrow.”  But  your  children  will  not  be  one  bit 
more  fascinating  in  their  youthful  companionship 
to-morrow  than  they  are  to-day ;  and  you  may  say 
“  To-morrow  ”  too  long,  until  there  are  no  children 
to  grow  up  with  in  your  home  at  all. 

“  Felix,  let  us  enter  into  the  sustaining  fellow¬ 
ship  of  Christ,  see  life  from  His  height,  and  live 
in  His  spirit;”  and  Felix  says,  “To-morrow.” 
But  Christ  will  not  be  one  whit  more  gracious  and 
redeeming  to-morrow  than  He  is  to-day. 

My  friends,  after  all,  to-day  is  all  we  actually  do 
possess.  Yesterday  is  gone,  and  to-morrow  is  not 
yet  here;  and  procrastination  is  a  deadly  habit  of 
blinding  one’s  eyes  to  the  opportunities  and  privi¬ 
leges  we  have  in  our  hands  and  dreaming  of  some¬ 
thing  that  sometime  we  may  have.  “  Carpe  diem,” 
cried  the  old  Latins,  “  Seize  the  day.” 

There  are  many  of  us  who  do  not  learn  this 
significant  lesson  until  we  learn  it  in  the  hardest  of 
all  ways;  we  lose  something  that  we  have  had  in 
our  possession  a  long  time,  too  little  appreciated; 
and  then  we  wake  up  to  wish  above  all  things  that 
we  might  have  it  back  again.  So  an  old  man  may 
look  back  upon  the  strength  of  youth  that  once  he 
had.  What  a  splendid  time  it  was  when  he  awoke 
each  morning  with  power  sufficient  for  his  tasks, 
and  went  out  to  work  with  joy!  Why  did  he  not 
appreciate  it  more  when  he  had  it,  and  get  more  out 
of  it?  Often  a  man  feels  so  about  his  friends 


58 


PROCRASTINATION 


when  they  are  gone.  What  tonic,  refreshing 
spirits  they  were !  Why  did  he  not  take  more  ad¬ 
vantage  of  the  fine  boon  of  their  fellowship  when 
he  had  the  chance?  So,  oftentimes,  mothers  feel 
about  their  children.  They  were  so  beautiful! 
Why  did  they  leave  them  so  much  with  others  and 
live  with  them  so  little  when  they  had  a  chance? 

So,  continually  we  are  waking  up  to  discover, 
only  when  we  have  lost  them,  that  for  years  we 
have  had  life’s  choicest  privileges  within  our  grasp; 
for  years  we  have  been  saying,  “  To-morrow  ” 
while  each  to-day  was  filled  with  unrealized  possi¬ 
bilities.  You  will  know  where  this  applies  to  you. 
I  am  sure  it  does  apply,  for  I  am  sure  that  every 
one  of  us  has  in  his  possession  now  relationships, 
blessings,  opportunities,  privileges,  concerning 
which  after  each  is  gone,  he  will  say,  “  Why  did  I 
not  make  more  of  it  while  I  had  it?  ”  My  friends, 
it  will  not  do  to  go  on  postponing  everything  until 
to-morrow.  If  a  man  is  going  to  live  a  fine,  rich, 
radiant,  and  joyful  Christian  life,  it  were  better  to 
begin  to-day. 

Once  more  pick  up  these  words  of  Felix  and  look 
at  them.  “  A  convenient  season,”  he  says  to  Paul, 
and  at  once  we  are  aware  that  he  doesn’t  think  that 
he  is  deciding  the  question  that  Paul  has  raised. 
He  thinks  that  he  has  postponed  the  decision,  but 
he  hasn’t.  For  indecisive  procrastination  is  one  of 
the  most  conclusive  methods  of  decision  that  man¬ 
kind  knows.  Now,  the  reason  for  this  is  perfectly 


HARRY  EMERSON  FOSDICK 


59 


simple.  Life’s  processes  do  not  call  a  halt  simply 
because  we  have  not  made  up  our  minds.  If  here 
in  New  York  City  or  in  the  country  round  about 
you  have  this  spring  a  garden-plot,  you  may  sup¬ 
pose  that  you  have  three  choices:  either  to  have 
flowers,  or  to  have  weeds,  or  to  be  hesitant,  un¬ 
certain,  indecisive.  But  in  fact  you  have  only  two 
choices.  If  you  choose  flowers,  you  may  have 
them ;  but  if  you  decide  to  be  indecisive,  nature  will 
decide  for  you.  You  will  have  weeds.  The  proc¬ 
esses  of  God’s  eternal  universe  do  not  stop  to  wait 
for  us  to  make  up  our  minds. 

Now,  life  continually  is  facing  us  with  these  en¬ 
forced  decisions,  where  to  endeavour  to  escape  de¬ 
cision  by  procrastination  is  utter  futility.  For  pro¬ 
crastination  is  irretrievable  decision.  Reach  down 
into  life  at  random,  anywhere,  and  you  will  find 
illustrations  in  plenty.  Shall  we  try  to  stop  the 
starvation  of  the  Chinese?  is  a  question  that  has 
been  facing  us  all  these  winter  and  spring  months. 
Do  you  say  you  will  wait  for  a  more  convenient 
season  to  make  up  your  mind?  You  may  as  well 
say  that  you  will  not  help  them  at  all.  For  the 
processes  of  starvation  do  not  cease  until  you  de¬ 
cide.  They  still  stalk  their  ghastly  way  through 
the  Celestial  Land,  and  take  their  toll  of  thousands 
and  tens  of  thousands  every  day.  To  be  indecisive 
is  not  to  be  indecisive.  It  is  one  of  the  most  con¬ 
clusive,  fatal,  irretrievable  decisions  you  can  make. 

Or  come  in  to  a  more  homely  episode.  You  see 


60 


PROCRASTINATION 


a  purse  dropped  in  the  street  and  you  see  the  one 
who  dropped  it.  You  may  suppose  that  you  have 
three  choices:  either  to  be  honest  and  return  it,  be 
dishonest  and  keep  it,  or  be  indecisive,  uncertain. 
But  you  have  only  two  choices.  If  you  decide  to 
be  indecisive,  the  processes  of  life  will  not  wait  for 
you.  The  crowds  will  surge  in  between  you  and 
the  purse’s  owner,  and  the  opportunity  of  being 
honest  which  was  yours  for  a  moment  will  vanish ; 
and,  while  you  yourself  will  not  decide,  life  will 
have  decided  for  you  and  leave  you  standing  there, 
dishonest. 

Or,  once  more,  let  your  imagination  reach  out  to 
the  most  stupendous  problem  in  the  world  to-day, 
the  avoidance  of  war.  Some  people  think  we  have 
three  choices:  either  to  make  a  united  stand  in 
favour  of  disarmament,  to  save  the  world  from  this 
intolerable  burden  of  taxation  for  war  that  is 
breaking  the  back  of  our  civilization;  or  to  refuse 
to  do  that  and  to  plunge  deliberately  into  huge 
competition  in  armament  in  preparation  for 
another  way;  or  to  be  indecisive,  to  dally  and  de¬ 
fer,  to  procrastinate  and  put  off.  But  as  a  matter 
of  fact  we  have  only  two  choices.  The  processes 
of  life  are  not  waiting — God  pity  us! — for  us  to 
make  up  our  minds.  We  are  like  ships  upon  a  sea 
where  to  drift  means  wreck  as  certainly  as  though 
with  full  deliberation  we  steered  toward  the  rocks. 
A  little  more  indecisiveness,  uncertainty,  procras¬ 
tination,  a  little  more  folding  of  the  hands  and  cry- 


HAEEY  EMEESON  FOSDICK 


61 


ing,  “  To-morrow,”  and  it  will  be  decided.  We 
shall  have  another  war. 

In  the  same  class  with  those  illustrative  instances 
lies  that  question  on  which  Felix  tried  to  postpone 
decision,  the  question  of  a  righteous,  self-corn 
trolled,  and  Christian  life.  For  see  this  one  ele¬ 
ment  that  runs  through  all  these  illustrative  cases. 
To  make  flowers  grow  means  positive  decision ;  to 
help  starving  Chinese  means  a  deliberate  act ;  to  be 
honest  in  a  crisis  means  a  thrust  of  the  will;  to 
move  toward  disarmament  means  a  resolute  act  of 
the  public  conscience.  All  great  things  cause 
positive  decision.  You  cannot  float  into  them  like 
thistle-down  blowing  in  the  wind.  And  being  a 
Christian  is  a  great  thing.  You  cannot  become  a 
Christian  in  your  sleep.  You  must  make  up  your 
mind  to  it.  And  if  any  Felix  endeavours  to  be  in¬ 
decisive,  he  is  not  really  indecisive.  His  life  proc¬ 
esses  still  go  on  without  Christ  because  he  has  not 
positively  decided  for  Christ. 

No  earnest  minister  could  speak  on  such  a  theme 
without  thinking  of  the  young  men  and  women  here 
who,  it  may  be,  have  been  in  attendance  on  these 
morning  services  all  this  winter  past,  and  now,  as 
school  or  college  closes,  go  to  their  homes,  or,  it 
may  be,  begin  their  business  or  professional 
careers.  I  speak  to  some  of  you  as  though  I  might 
never  have  the  chance  to  speak  to  you  again.  No 
one  would  urge  you  to  choose  something  that  you 
do  not  understand  or  that  you  do  not  believe.  But 


62 


PROCRASTINATION 


if  you  have  caught  at  all  the  emphases  of  this 
pulpit,  you  must  see  how  little  we  care  here  about 
those  sectarian  peccadillos  that  have  marred  the 
church,  and  the  theological  peculiarities  that  have 
disfigured  her  serious  thought ;  you  must  have  seen 
how  earnestly  we  have  pressed  our  emphasis  back 
to  that  central  matter,  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  His  filial 
life  with  God,  His  brotherly  life  with  men,  His 
sacrificial  passion  for  the  coming  of  the  kingdom 
of  righteousness  upon  the  earth,  the  faith  that  em¬ 
powered  Him,  the  hope  that  sustained  Him,  the 
character  that  was  His  crown  and  glory.  You 
haven’t  three  choices  about  that.  You  have  two 
choices.  You  may  glorify  your  life  if  you  will  by 
having  Him  for  the  Master  of  your  soul.  But  if 
you  try  to  be  indecisive,  you  are  not  indecisive; 
you  are  missing  Him;  you  are  missing  Him  as 
thoroughly  as  though  you  said,  “  No  ”  to  Him. 
For  you  will  go  out  to  live  a  life  not  mastered  by 
His  positive  faiths,  not  dedicated  to  His  positive 
cause. 

As  one  thinks  of  this  refusal  through  procrasti¬ 
nation,  he  sees  how  many  men  are  living  in  just 
this  attitude.  For  there  are  multitudes  of  people  to 
whose  hearts  the  highest  impulses  are  not  strange 
at  all,  who  again  and  again  have  risen  to  the  appeal 
of  Jesus  like  waves  that  almost  come  to  their  crest, 
but  not  quite;  they  never  quite  break  into  the 
white  foam  of  a  finished  billow ;  but  they  rise  and 
sink,  rise  and  sink,  forever  moving,  but  moving  no- 


HAEEY  EMEESON  FOSDICK 


63 


where,  forever  promising,  but  never  consummated. 
How  futile  is  a  life  like  that  in  any  realm!  In 
literature  Coleridge  was  the  consummate  example 
of  procrastination.  He  projected  more  poems, 
more  essays,  more  lectures,  than  any  other  man 
that  ever  lived;  but  he  finished  almost  nothing — a 
few  things  like  “  The  Ancient  Mariner/’  but  not 
much  else.  He  planned  everything,  but  he  post¬ 
poned  work  on  anything.  You  pick  up  a  page, 
and  read, 

“  In  Xanadu  did  Kubla  Khan 

A  stately  pleasure-dome  decree: 

Where  Alph,  the  sacred  river,  ran 
Through  caverns  measureless  to  man 
Down  to  a  sunless  sea.” 

You  say,  “  This  is  fascinating.”  But  the  trouble 
is,  that  is  about  all  there  is  of  it.  He  never 
finished  it.  It  was  a  passing  impulse.  He  never 
made  up  his  mind  to  write  it  through.  He  was 
an  animated  prospectus,  full  of  deferred  plans. 

But  there  are  many  of  us  who  have  no  business 
to  laugh  at  him.  In  a  far  more  deep  and  important 
matter  than  writing  poems,  we  are  living  that  kind 
of  life.  Again  and  again  we  have  felt  the  appeal 
of  Christ.  Again  and  again  we  have  felt  the  lure 
of  an  open,  decisive,  consistent  Christian  life  in  a 
generation  when  open,  decisive,  and  consistent 
Christian  lives  are  more  needed  than  anything  else ; 
but  we  are  still  uncertain,  irresolute,  procrastina¬ 
ting.  I  wish  there  were  one  here  this  morning  who 


64 


PEOCEASTINATION 


would  cease  the  refusal  of  the  highest  through  pro¬ 
crastination,  who  would  say,  “  As  for  me,  now, 
now  is  the  accepted  time,  and  now  is  the  day  of 
salvation.” 

Just  once  more  pick  up  these  words  of  Felix 
and  look  at  them.  “  A  convenient  season,”  he 
says  politely  and  cheerfully  to  Paul  as  he  bids  him 
good-night,  and  you  perceive  at  once  that  he  con¬ 
fidently  thinks  there  will  be  a  convenient  season. 
He  has  not  deeply  perceived  that  serious  truth 
which  runs  through  all  human  life,  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  being  too  late.  Procrastination  a 
small  fault?  No,  not  in  a  universe  where  some 
things  have  to  be  done  on  time  if  they  are  going 
to  be  done  at  all.  Says  the  tree  in  April,  “  I  will 
not  put  forth  my  leaves  now — in  May;”’  and  in 
May  the  tree  says,  “  A  more  convenient  season — 
June.”  But  it  would  better  take  care.  If  leaves 
are  not  forthcoming  in  April  or  May  or  June,  it 
is  getting  late.  July  is  no  time  for  leaves  to  come, 
and  August  is  almost  hopeless,  and  September  is 
quite  too  late.  He  must  have  blind  eyes  who  can¬ 
not  see  that  truth  running  all  through  human  life, 
a  serious  truth  to  which  no  cheap  and  easy  opti¬ 
mism  ought  ever  to  blind  our  sight. 

The  truth  is  inherent  in  the  very  fact  of  growing 
up  from  youth  to  age.  What  a  fairy-land  of  pos¬ 
sibilities  youth  is !  Listen  to  this  lad  talking.  He 
is  not  sure,  he  says,  yet,  whether  he  is  to  be  a  civil 
engineer,  or  a  business  man,  or  a  lawyer,  or  a  pro- 


HARRY  EMERSON  FOSDICK 


65 


fessional  aviator;  and  he  thinks  he  might  be  a 
minister.  And,  when  he  talks  to  you  like  that, 
what  is  more,  you  must  listen  to  him  seriously. 
He  may  be  any  one  of  them.  The  doors  are  all 
open.  He  is  young.  But  we  who  have  reached 
maturity  have  all  these  years  been  listening  to  a 
sound  with  which  we  are  perfectly  familiar,  the 
sound  of  shutting  doors.  The  range  of  our  pos¬ 
sible  choices  has  been  narrowing  down.  We  know 
well  enough  that  there  are  some  things  on  this 
earth  we  never  can  do  now.  It  is  too  late.  Happy 
the  man  who  has  chosen  right!  Happy  the  man 
who  has  not  put  off  too  long  doing  something  that 
he  wanted  to  do  very  much  indeed. 

Alongside  this  fact  of  the  inevitable  passage  of 
the  years,  the  possibility  of  being  too  late  is  accen¬ 
tuated  by  the  companion  fact  of  habit.  There  may 
have  been  a  time  when  you  could  straighten  out 
the  down-town  streets  of  Boston,  when  they  were 
meandering  cow-paths  along  the  shores  of  Mas¬ 
sachusetts  Bay,  but  it  is  too  late  now.  They  have 
been  widened  into  streets  and  set  in  asphalt,  and 
curbed  in  stone,  and  the  life  of  the  metropolis  has 
immovably  solidified  itself  around  them.  It  is  too 
late.  So  is  the  set  of  habit  in  the  life  of  man. 

It  is  no  small  matter,  then,  to  say  to  young  men 
and  women  in  their  fluid  years  of  choice  that  they 
would  better  make  the  decision  that  concerns  the 
deep  interests  of  their  spiritual  life.  For  Felix  is 
no  ancient  character  alone.  He  has  had  a  multi- 


66 


PROCRASTINATION 


tude  of  reincarnations.  Edgar  Allan  Poe  was 
another  Felix.  He  died  as  a  result  of  a  drunken 
night’s  revel  in  a  saloon  in  Baltimore.  You  say  he 
was  bad  ?  A  man  cannot  content  himself  in  speak¬ 
ing  of  such  a  man  by  saying,  “  He  is  bad.”  Look 
upon  that  brutal,  drunken  death,  and  think  of  what 
he  wrote: 

“  For  the  moon  never  beams  without  bringing  me 
dreams 

Of  the  beautiful  Annabel  Lee, 

And  the  stars  never  rise  but  I  feel  the  bright  eyes 
Of  the  beautiful  Annabel  Lee: 

And  so,  all  the  night-tide,  I  lie  down  by  the  side 
Of  my  darling — my  darling — my  life  and  my  bride. 
In  the  sepulchre  there  by  the  sea, 

In  her  tomb  by  the  sounding  sea.” 

Surely,  men  who  write  like  that  are  not  all  bad. 
There  are  harbours  in  the  world  where  the  harbour 
bar  is  so  high  that  it  never  can  be  passed  at  low 
tide;  so  the  ships  wait  for  the  high  tide  that  they 
may  enter  in.  So  are  the  souls  of  men.  Think  of 
the  flood-tides,  then,  that  a  man  like  Edgar  Allan 
Poe  must  have  had  when  the  sky  called  to  the  deep, 
and  in  his  heart  there  were  voices  speaking,  like 
Paul  before  Felix,  about  righteousness  and  self- 
control  and  judgment  to  come.  But  he  would  not 
decide!  Up  and  down,  up  and  down,  outside  the 
harbour  bar  he  sailed  his  craft,  irresolute,  procras¬ 
tinating,  till  the  tide  went  out,  and  then  it  was  too 
late. 


HARRY  EMERSON  FOSDICK 


67 


And  this  possibility  of  being  too  late  is  of  course 
accentuated,  so  far  as  this  earth  is  concerned,  by 
death.  I  do  not  know  whether  that  impresses  me 
more  when  I  think  of  my  own  death  or  when  I 
think  of  the  death  of  my  friends.  For,  when 
death  comes,  it  does  come  very  suddenly.  Ah,  if 
you  have  anybody  to  love,  you  would  better  love 
him  now.  If  you  have  little  children  to  be  brought 
up  in  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  you  would  better  do  it 
now.  If  you  have  quarrelled  with  some  one  with 
whom  in  your  deepest  heart  you  did  not  mean  to 
quarrel,  you  would  better  make  it  right  now.  If 
you  have  any  contributions  that  you  can  make  to 
build  here  a  juster,  kindlier  world  for  our  hu¬ 
manity,  you  would  better  make  it  now.  And  if 
you  know  a  Lord  whose  service  is  perfect  freedom, 
a  Saviour  whose  love  is  wider  than  the  measure  of 
man’s  mind,  you  would  better  choose  Him  now. 

My  young  friends,  there  are  three  great  choices 
that  a  man  makes  in  his  experience:  First,  his  voca¬ 
tion,  what  he  will  do  with  his  life;  second,  his 
marriage,  who  will  be  the  mother  of  his  children; 
and  third,  his  faith,  who  shall  be  the  guide  of  his 
soul.  I  think  you  know  that  Jesus  Christ  has  a 
right  to  that  place.  Then  put  Him  there — not  to¬ 
morrow — TO-DAY. 


y 


THE  WORLD  UNDER  THE  ASPECT 

OF  TRAGEDY 

By 

GEORGE  A.  GORDON,  D.  D., 

Pastor ,  Old  South  ( Congregational )  Church , 

Boston 


George  Angier  Gordon  was  born  in  Scotland  in 
1853.  He  received  his  academic  training  at  Harvard 
College  and  has  been  minister  of  Old  South  Congre¬ 
gational  Church,  Boston,  Massachusetts,  since  1884. 
The  pulpit  style  of  Dr.  Gordon  is  conspicuous  for  its 
literary  beauty  and  for  many  years  Old  South  Church 
has  been  one  of  the  famous  preaching  points  of 
North  America.  Dr.  Gordon  is  both  a  great  preacher 
and  a  great  thinker.  He  was  lecturer  in  the  Lowell 
Institute  Course  1900;  University  Preacher  to  Har¬ 
vard  1886-90;  to  Yale  1888-1901;  Lyman  Beecher 
Lecturer,  Yale  1901.  He  has  published  many  books 
of  great  merit.  Among  these  may  be  named:  The 
New  Theodicy  and  The  Witness  to  Immortality. 


V 


THE  WORLD  UNDER  THE  ASPECT 
OF  TRAGEDY 

“  Because  his  compassions  fail  not  ” 

— Lamentations  3 :  22. 

THERE  are  four  things  present  in  all  great 
tragedy.  Every  one  of  the  tragic  per¬ 
sons  is  to  blame  for  the  fateful  complica¬ 
tion,  and  no  one  is  altogether  to  blame;  the 
magnitude  of  the  experience  is  unmeasured,  the 
sin,  the  mistake,  the  suffering,  the  woe;  mystery, 
like  starless  midnight,  broods  upon  all  the  confines 
of  being  and  overhangs  the  whole  field  of  action; 
and  lastly,  there  is  pity  arising  in  the  heart  of  the 
spectator  of  the  awful  tragic  movements,  pity  that 
purifies  his  heart,  that  exalts  his  soul,  that  brings 
with  it  a  strange  peace  and  a  great  indefinable  hope. 

Look  into  the  heart  of  one  of  the  greatest  of  all 
tragedies  and  see  if  these  statements  are  not  true. 
There  is  King  Lear.  He  is  to  blame  for  vanity, 
over-fondness  for  affection,  and  credulity.  Cor¬ 
delia,  that  rare  and  beautiful  soul,  is  to  blame  for 
temper  and  want  of  tact.  If  these  two  tragic  per¬ 
sons  in  the  drama  are  to  blame,  all  the  others  surely 
are.  Each  one  is  to  blame,  and  no  one  wholly  to 

71 


72 


THE  ASPECT  OF  TRAGEDY 


blame.  Then  there  is  the  extent  of  that  tragic 
complication;  persons,  families,  kingdoms  are  in¬ 
volved;  sin,  mistake,  and  suffering  are  there  that 
no  mind  can  measure.  The  last  thing  that  the 
tragedy  does  for  the  one  who  beholds  it  is  to  melt 
his  heart  in  compassion,  and  the  compassion  brings 
with  it  awe,  exaltation,  and  a  strange  peace  and 
hope. 

The  man  of  genius  who  wrote  the  text,  a  great 
deep-hearted  patriot,  looked  at  his  nation  under  the 
aspect  of  tragedy.  In  586  b.  c.  Jerusalem  was  laid 
waste  by  the  Chaldeans,  and  the  youth,  the  beauty, 
the  promise,  and  the  power  of  the  people  were 
carried  away,  and  only  the  remnants  remained  of 
those  not  slain  or  not  enslaved.  His  nation  was 
a  nation  in  ruin;  thus  he  beheld  it.  Every  one 
was  to  blame  for  the  fateful  complication,  and  no 
one  was  wholly  to  blame;  the  magnitude  of  the 
experience  was  evident,  outrunning  all  possible 
measurement  or  comprehension ;  mystery  was 
brooding  over  all  like  a  thick  cloud  so  that  not  even 
his  prayers  could  pierce  through.  Then  the  re¬ 
sultant  mood,  “  It  is  of  the  Lord’s  mercies  that  we 
are  not  consumed,  because  his  compassions  fail 
not.” 

There  are  many  ways  of  regarding  this  world  of 
ours,  its  tumult,  its  terrible  processes  of  wickedness 
and  of  suffering.  The  text  bids  us  look  at  it  under 
the  aspect  of  tragedy  and  behold  the  world-wide 
complication  for  which  every  living  being  is  in 


GEOEGE  AKGIEE  GOEDON 


73 


part  responsible  and  for  which  no  single  individual, 
however  wicked,  is  wholly  responsible.  Again,  it 
bids  us  look  at  the  immeasurable  extent  of  the 
experience,  the  sin,  the  sheer  ignorance,  the  per¬ 
versity,  the  suffering,  the  woe;  and  once  more,  it 
bids  us  look  at  the  mystery  that  overhangs  the 
whole,  dark,  as  I  have  said,  as  starless  midnight, 
impenetrable,  utterly  inscrutable,  and  finally  it 
directs  attention  to  our  own  hearts,  if  we  are  men 
of  faith,  men  of  patriotism,  of  humanity,  to  the 
fountain  flowing  there  of  pity,  of  compassion;  it 
seems  to  whisper  that  we  are  on  the  great  world’s 
altar-stairs  that  slope  through  darkness  up  to  God. 

I  ask  you  to  look  with  me  for  a  few  moments  at 
what  the  Eternal  Compassion  means  as  we  reach  it 
through  the  world  regarded  under  the  aspect  of 
tragedy. 


I 

The  first  great  attribute  in  compassion  is  the 
understanding  mind.  God  knows  His  world  from 
the  inside.  Sometimes  during  the  summer  I  pass 
this  church  and  look  up  at  the  windows  scorched 
with  heat,  covered  with  dust,  black,  unmeaning,  and 
then  I  come  into  the  House  of  God,  find  the  radi¬ 
ance  of  the  summer  sun  flooding  the  building,  and 
I  see  there  the  Good  Samaritan  still  healing  the 
sick,  there  the  Apostles  and  the  Prophets  still 
holding  forth  the  Word  of  Life,  there  the  saintly 
and  faithful  ones  silently  running  on  their  errands 


74 


THE  ASPECT  OF  TRAGEDY 


of  grace;  lastly  my  eye  lights  upon  the  Parable  of 
the  Sower.  “  Behold,  a  sower  went  forth  to  sow  ” 
in  the  minds  and  hearts  and  wills  of  men.  Here, 
from  the  inside,  is  the  promise  of  a  new  and 
glorious  world.  God,  the  compassionate  Father  of 
men,  understands  His  world  from  the  inside.  He 
sees  His  prophets  still  with  their  visions  and  their 
dreams.  He  sees  His  apostles  still  declaring  the 
message  of  His  Mind  and  Character;  His  healers 
and  His  faithful  ones  are  all  at  work  unseen  and 
silent,  the  music  of  whose  feet  only  the  angels 
hear.  And  Pie  sees  a  sower  going  forth  to  sow 
in  the  tragedy  of  the  world  new  and  better  thoughts 
in  the  minds  of  men,  and  in  their  hearts  new  and 
deeper  feelings,  and  in  their  wills  new  and  greater 
purposes.  He  beholds,  from  the  inside,  vast 
movements  out  of  the  depths  of  the  tragic  world, 
promising  by  and  by  a  morning  without  clouds. 

Two  members  of  His  family  went  out  to  meet 
the  Lost  Son  on  his  return,  the  elder  brother  and 
the  father.  The  elder  brother  looked  from  the 
outside  and  said,  “  This  son  of  yours  who  wasted 
your  substance  with  harlots,  you  have  feasted 
him.”  This  is  the  outside  view;  it  was  absolutely 
correct  as  far  as  it  went.  Did  it  comprehend  that 
young  man’s  life?  Ah,  no.  The  father  went 
forth  to  meet  him,  moved  with  compassion ;  he  read 
the  whole  secret  tragedy  of  his  son’s  life,  his  sin, 
the  plot  into  which  his  sin  threw  him,  his  mistake, 
his  suffering,  his  woe,  and  the  emergence  as  from 


GEOEGE  AEGIEB  GOEDON 


75 


Erebus,  of  his  soul  seeking  life.  Which  under¬ 
stood  that  son,  the  brother  or  the  father?  God 
understands  His  world  from  the  inside  and  rests  on 
the  vision  of  the  order  that  shall  come  forth  out  of 
the  tragedy  that  now  reigns. 

II 

The  second  great  attribute  of  compassion  is 
magnanimity.  That  is  the  Greek  word  for  “  great¬ 
mindedness.”  Greek  tragedy,  in  one  way,  is  un¬ 
surpassable,  perhaps  incomparable,  in  its  sim¬ 
plicity,  in  its  integrity,  in  its  austere  order  and 
power.  It  has  little  or  no  humour  in  it,  and  herein 
it  is  surely  surpassed  by  Shakespearian  tragedy 
which  composes  in  its  own  vast  mind  both  the 
pathos  and  the  humour  of  life.  Look  into  your 
Hamlet  again.  Is  there  any  scene  anywhere  of 
more  piercing  pathos  or  profounder  tragedy  than 
Ophelia,  beautiful  Ophelia,  crazed  with  grief  and 
yet  undying  in  her  loveliness,  strewing  flowers  upon 
the  new-made  grave  of  her  father  who  was  slain 
by  her  lover.  A  little  further  on  you  find  the 
grave-digging  scene,  with  its  pure,  irresistible 
humour.  The  debate  between  the  grave-diggers 
shakes  one’s  soul  with  merriment ;  and  there  is  the 
conversation  of  the  callous,  mirthful  grave-digger 
with  the  sorrowful,  awe-struck  Hamlet.  Here  is 

I 

humour,  pure  as  the  spirit  that  made  it,  coming 
from  the  very  heart  of  humanity  in  this  tragic 
world,  and  both  the  pathos  and  the  humour  are 


76 


THE  ASPECT  OF  TRAGEDY 


reconciled,  composed,  wrought  into  a  whole  by  the 
great-minded  poet.  Is  not  this  true  of  life?  Who 
is  the  most  tragic  figure  in  our  American  history  ? 
Abraham  Lincoln.  He  moved,  during  the  four 
long  years  of  that  tragic  drama,  the  supremely 
tragic  man,  and  on  his  right  hand  was  the  fountain 
of  tears  and  on  his  left  the  fountain  of  mirth,  both 
composed  within  the  universal  catholicity  of  his 
humanity. 

And  Jesus,  the  most  tragic  figure  in  all  history, 
moves  to  His  cross  and  on  the  way  notes  the  irra¬ 
tionality  and  absurdity  of  the  time  in  which  He 
lives,  and  says,  “  This  generation  is  like  unto  chil¬ 
dren  sitting  in  the  market-place  who  call  unto  their 
fellows  and  say,  We  piped  unto  you,  and  ye  did 
not  dance;  we  wailed,  and  ye  did  not  mourn.,, 
The  tragedy  and  the  comedy,  He  saw  them  deep  as 
life  and  broad  as  the  world,  and  He  composed  them 
in  His  own  magnanimity. 

Does  not  this  help  us  toward  the  vision  of  the 
magnanimous  God,  Who  makes  His  sun  to  rise 
upon  the  evil  and  the  good  and  Who  sends  His  rain 
upon  the  just  and  the  unjust,  not  because  He  is 
indifferent  to  moral  distinctions,  but  because  of  His 
Eternal  Magnanimity.  Again,  He  rests  on  the 
vision  of  the  issue  of  the  tragic  complication  and 
waits  in  His  Eternal  Peace. 

Ill 

Finally,  there  is  in  compassion  another  vast  at- 


GEOEGE  ANGIER  GORDON 


77 


tribute  that  touches  every  one  of  us,  and  that  is 
recreative  moral  power.  The  classic  example  is 
the  Lost  Son.  What  changed  him,  what  made  him 
new  forever?  It  was  his  father’s  compassion. 
What  changed  Peter  after  that  triple  denial,  that 
terrific  treason  of  his  soul  to  the  truth  and  to  his 
Master  ?  The  Lord  turned  and  looked  upon  Peter. 
It  was  that  compassionate  look;  the  look  not  of 
reproach,  not  of  indignation,  not  of  the  cry  of 
vengeance,  but  of  sorrow,  of  purest,  divinest 
compassion,  that  made  Peter  new,  and  new  for¬ 
ever. 

How  far  our  Lord’s  prayer  upon  the  cross  has 
gone:  “Father,  forgive  them;  for  they  know  not 
what  they  do.”  It  has  gone  everywhere  and  been 
a  source  of  moral  hope  to  the  despairing  and 
recreative  power  to  those  crumbling  into  dust. 

This  is  the  gospel  we  all  need.  Am  I  not  right 
in  supposing  that  we  wake  many  a  morning  to  ask 
the  question,  “  What  right  have  I  to  pray  to  God, 
what  right  have  I  to  speak  to  Him,  I,  so  worldly,  so 
selfish,  so  unmindful  of  things  that  are  high,  so  far 
away  from  fidelity  and  honour?”  And  again, 
“  What  right  have  I  to  think  of  myself  as  a  Chris¬ 
tian?  Where  are  my  absentee  ideals?  Where  are 
the  great  passionate  loves  that  should  follow  Chris¬ 
tian  ideals  ?  And  where  are  the  purposes  that  hold 
men’s  souls  together?  What  right  have  I  to  call 
myself  a  Christian?  What  have  I  done  for  the 
great  ideal  causes  of  the  world,  those  that  represent 


78 


THE  ASPECT  OF  TRAGEDY 


our  whole  higher  civilization,  without  which  our 
civilization  would  be  the  economy  of  brutes?  What 
have  I  done  for  education,  for  hospitals,  for  the 
mission  of  the  prophet  and  healer,  for  the  builder 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  at  home  and  abroad?” 
Then  in  our  despair  we  think  of  the  Infinite  Com¬ 
passion,  and  we  bathe  our  whole  troubled  and  fail¬ 
ing  soul  in  that,  and  we  come  forth  again  able  to 
pray  to  God,  able  to  claim  the  name  of  Christian, 
able  to  think  of  ourselves  as  soldiers  and  servants 
of  the  Ideal. 

Every  human  being  here  this  morning  needs  this 
gospel  of  the  Eternal  Compassion.  Those  who  are 
morally  successful  need  it,  they  are  so  much  less 
successful  than  they  should  be.  That  those  who 
are  morally  defeated  need  it,  I  do  not  need  to  say. 
They  who  have  the  prospect  of  long  life  before 
them  need  it ;  and  we  whose  daily  chant  is,  “We 
who  are  about  to  die  salute  thee,”  we  need  it.  The 
whole  race  of  men  needs  it.  And  when  we  come 
to  our  human  world,  what  shall  we  say  to  it  to-day, 
tempest-tossed  and  driven  by  the  tides  of  its  own 
wickedness  and  ignorance,  what  shall  we  say  to  it  ? 
Come  back  to  the  Eternal  Compassion.  Do  not 
dwell  simply  on  the  guilt  of  all,  the  magnitude,  the 
sin,  and  the  woe,  nor  upon  the  mystery  that  like 
a  pall  overhangs  the  whole.  Read  it  from  the 
point  of  view  of  compassion,  find  its  meaning 
there. 

About  the  most  tremendous  words  in  the  New 


GEOBGE  AKGIEB  GOBDON 


79 


Testament  are  those  that  I  read  to-day,  the  most 
tragic  I  think,  in  the  literature  of  mankind: 

“  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  that  killeth  the 
prophets,  and  stoneth  them  that  are  sent 
unto  her!  How  often  would  I  have  gath¬ 
ered  thy  children  together,  even  as  a  hen 
gathereth  her  brood  under  her  wings,  and 
ye  would  not !  ” 

And  yet  the  religion  of  Jesus  is  the  religion  of 
compassion,  the  religion  of  the  Eternal  Compas¬ 
sion  that  cannot  finally  be  defeated. 

Here  is  the  gospel.  Do  not  sit  down  and  paint 
the  blackness  of  the  world.  It  knows  how  black 
it  is.  Tell  it  of  the  loving-kindness  of  the  Lord 
and  His  unfailing  compassion.  Climb  on  the  altar¬ 
stairway  of  the  pity  in  your  own  heart  up  through 
the  gloom  and  into  the  presence  of  God. 

You  recall  Whittier’s  “  Ten  on  the  Beach.”  How 
one  recurs  to  that  series  of  poems.  Whittier,  who 
regarded  our  human  world  so  often  and  with  such 
eyes  under  the  aspect  of  tragedy,  sings: 

“  Oh,  the  generations  old 
Over  whom  no  church-bells  tolled, 
Christless,  lifting  up  blind  eyes 
To  the  silence  of  the  skies !  ” 

There  is  the  appalling  tragedy.  But  he  had  faith 
to  match  it,  faith  in  the  Eternal  Compassion  de¬ 
clared  through  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 


80 


THE  ASPECT  OF  TRAGEDY 


“  Still  Thy  love,  O  Christ  arisen, 

Yearns  to  reach  these  souls  in  prison! 
Through  all  depths  of  sin  and  loss 
Drops  the  plummet  of  Thy  cross ! 

Never  yet  abyss  was  found 
Deeper  than  that  cross  could  sound  !  ” 

There  is  the  religion  for  this  day.  The  com¬ 
plication  is  fateful  and  terrible,  the  experience  in 
sin,  folly,  shame,  and  woe  is  immeasurable,  the 
mystery  is  such  that  no  finite  mind  can  disperse  or 
even  mitigate.  There  remains  the  compassion  in 
our  own  heart,  aspiring  to  the  Eternal  Soul,  finding 
in  our  human  pity  a  ladder  from  time  to  Eternity, 
from  finite  to  Infinite.  When  we  climb  that  ladder 
we  find  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  the  Absolute 
Compassion ;  we  behold  our  world  under  the  aspect 
of  Eternity,  and  our  world  under  the  aspect  of 
tragedy  finally  melts  through  suffering,  through  all 
the  ways  of  an  inexorable  justice,  through  re¬ 
creative  pity,  into  accord  with  a  Universe  all  light, 
all  love,  all  joy,  all  peace. 


VI 

WHAT  IF  CHRIST  WERE  NOT? 

By 

NEWELL  DWIGHT  HILLIS,  D.  D.,  LL.  D., 

Pastor ,  Plymouth  ( Congregational )  Church , 

Brooklyn ,  N.  Y. 


Newell  Dwight  Hillis  was  born  at  Magnolia,  Iowa, 
in  1858.  The  Presbyterian  Church  at  Evaston,  Illi¬ 
nois,  was  the  scene  of  his  first  pastorate.  At  the 
death  of  Prof.  David  Swing  he  was  called  to  the 
pulpit  of  Central  Church,  Chicago.  In  1899  he  was 
called  to  the  pulpit  of  historic  Plymouth  Church, 
Brooklyn,  as  successor  to  Drs.  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
and  Lyman  Abbott.  Upon  learning  of  the  death  of 
Dr.  F.  W.  Gunsaulus  who  was,  perhaps,  the  fore¬ 
most  American  pulpit  orator  of  this  generation,  Dr. 
Joseph  Fort  Newton  wrote  me  saying:  “  Only  Hillis 
can  take  his  place  as  master  of  the  Pulpit  Art.” 
Judged  by  the  throngs  that  everywhere  seek  to  hear 
him,  by  the  number  of  times  his  words  are  quoted, 
and  his  name  mentioned  both  in  America  and  Eng¬ 
land,  together  with  the  popularity  of  his  many  written 
works,  it  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  there  is  no 
more  influential  living  preacher  in  the  English-speak¬ 
ing  world. 

Among  Dr.  Hillis’  best  known  books  are:  All  the 
Year  Round ,  The  Battle  of  Principles ,  The  Contagion 
of  Character,  The  Fortune  of  the  Republic,  The 
Quest  of  John  Chapman,  A  Man's  Value  to  Society, 
The  Investment  of  Influence,  The  Quest  of  Happi¬ 
ness,  The  Better  America,  The  Influence  of  Christ  in 
Modern  Life,  Great  Books  as  Life  Teachers,  Great 
Men  as  Prophets  of  the  New  Era . 


VI 


WHAT  IF  CHRIST  WERE  NOT?1 

“And  Jesus  said  to  his  disciples ,  Will  ye  also  go 
away  f  And  Peter  answered ,  To  whom ?” 

— John  6:  67,  68. 

SEVERAL  authors,  with  varying  skill,  have 
written  books  on  the  condition  of  the  world 
if  Christ  were  not.  Every  one  is  familiar 
with  Jean  Paul’s  Dream  of  the  Children,  coming 
into  the  church  and  sobbing  out  their  sorrow  be¬ 
cause  there  is  no  Christ,  and  no  Christmas,  and 
that  all  alike  are  orphans.  Henry  Rogers  wrote 
a  book  called  “  The  Eclipse  of  Faith,”  in  which  he 
imagines  that  some  powerful  hand  has  wiped  the 
influence  of  Christ  out  of  civilization,  as  some 
hand  wipes  the  chalk  writing  from  the  blackboard 
of  the  schoolroom.  This  brilliant  author  repre¬ 
sents  himself  as  going  into  his  library  to  discover 
that  every  vestige  of  Christ’s  life  and  words  has 
wholly  disappeared.  He  opens  his  law  books  upon 
the  legal  safeguards  protecting  children  in  the  poor- 
houses,  the  orphans,  the  chimney  sweeps,  the  boys 
in  the  coal  mines,  the  poor  in  tenements,  the  slaves 
everywhere,  and  lo !  all  these  laws  have  disappeared, 
leaving  paragraphs  blank  in  some  law  books,  with 
here  and  there  whole  pages,  and  indeed,  entire 
‘Published  also  in  The  Brooklyn  Daily  Eagle. 

83 


84 


WHAT  IF  CHRIST  WERE  NOT? 


chapters,  until  what  is  left  on  the  code  is  meaning¬ 
less  jargon.  Alarmed,  he  turned  to  his  histories  of 
art,  and  where  the  Transfiguration  had  been  he 
found  a  blank  page,  and  to  the  galleries,  but  instead 
of  the  Sistine  Madonna  of  Raphael  and  the  Ecce 
Homo,  by  Guido  Reni,  and  Rembrandt’s  Prodigal 
Son,  with  thousands  of  other  masterpieces,  he 
found  only  empty  frames.  Turning  to  the  greatest 
'poems  of  Dante  and  Milton,  of  Wordsworth  and 
Tennyson  and  Browning,  he  found  nothing  but 
empty  pages  with  the  number  of  the  page  at  the 
top.  Having  long  loved  architecture  with  a  great 
passion,  his  thoughts  flew  to  St.  Peter’s  in  Rome, 
to  Milan  and  Cologne  and  Westminster  Abbey,  and 
lo,  nothing  remained  there  but  great  cellars,  for 
when  the  cross  went,  the  cathedrals  fashioned  in 
the  form  of  that  cross  perished  also.  And  then  it 
was  that  Rogers  realized  that  if  Christ  were  not, 
the  schools,  the  hospitals,  the  beautiful  philan¬ 
thropies,  the  missions,  so  beneficent  in  their  influ¬ 
ence  at  home  and  abroad,  would  all  perish,  as  if 
shaken  down  by  some  cosmic  earthquake,  and  this 
lawyer  cried  out  that  he  would  not  want  to  live  at 
all  in  a  world  where  Christ  was  not. 

And  to-day  we  all  have  our  vision  of  a  revolution 
against  Jesus  in  thought  and  life.  What  if  in  the 
stress  of  a  great  crisis  representatives  of  the  na¬ 
tions  of  the  earth  should  meet  together,  ostensibly 
to  destroy  war  and  organize  a  universal  peace. 
But  when  the  chairman  of  the  world’s  conference 


NEWELL  DWIGHT  HILLIS 


85 


begins  his  opening  address,  every  one  should  notice 
the  cynical  look  upon  his  face  and  the  bitter  note 
that  had  crept  into  his  voice.  The  burden  of  his 
argument  has  to  do  with  the  economic  wastes  of 
Christian  sympathy.  He  makes  a  plea  against  the 
industrial  losses  incident  to  Christ’s  story  of  the 
Good  Samaritan.  He  estimates  that  our  genera¬ 
tion  would  save  fifteen  to  twenty  per  cent,  by  com¬ 
ing  out  boldly  for  the  anarchistic  principle  of  every 
fellow  for  himself  and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost. 
He  urges  that  the  weak  have  no  right  to  survive 
and  should  go  to  the  wall.  And  that  it  is  an 
outrage  for  the  strong  to  be  made  unhappy  by 
carrying  the  burdens  of  the  weak.  “  Look  abroad 
over  the  world — everywhere  this  Galilean’s  baneful 
influence  is  found.  Why  should  the  poorly  born 
not  die  to-day,  since  they  must  die  to-morrow? 
Why  should  not  this  conference  declare  plainly  that 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  with  His  doctrine  of  love,  pity 
and  self-sacrifice,  has  laid  an  unbearable  burden 
upon  men  ?  The  key-word  in  this  crisis,”  he  said, 
“  is  revolt.  Let  us  return  to  Nature,  and  live  as 
the  beasts  and  birds  in  the  forests  live,  and  die  as 
they  die — namely,  a  natural  death,  having  no  re¬ 
gard  for  these  petty  dreams  of  Christian  im¬ 
morality - ”  and  this  man  carries  the  delegates, 

and  with  one  voice  they  shout  aloud,  “Away  with 
this  superstition !  Down  with  these  spires !  ”  And 
in  the  midst  of  the  noise  and  confusion  the  twilight 
falls,  and  suddenly  in  the  darkness  a  still,  small 


86 


WHAT  IF  CHRIST  WERE  NOT  ? 


voice  is  heard,  that  in  the  silence  of  each  heart 
turns  to  thunder,  “  What  I  have  made  shall  be 
unmade.” 

It  shall  be  as  you  have  willed.  “  Henceforth 
the  light  that  was  given  is  withdrawn,  and  for 
angels’  bread  there  shall  be  the  apples  of  Sodom, 
and  for  the  wine  and  the  nectar  of  Paradise  there 
shall  be  what  you  ask  the  dropping  of  asps  and 
the  poison  of  serpents.”  But  going  into  the 
streets,  these  apostates  look  with  altered  eyes  upon 
an  altered  world.  Lifted,  now,  all  the  restraints 
of  law!  Wild  men  who  through  fear  and  shame 
had  restrained  their  appetites  suddenly  reveal  them¬ 
selves.  It  was  as  if  harpies  and  assassins  had 
leaped  from  every  alleyway  upon  those  delegates, 
when  the  mob  spirit  burst  loose.  Then  came  the 
crashing  of  plate  glass  windows,  the  shrieks  of 
night  watchmen,  the  looting  of  splendid  stores  and 
shops,  and  in  the  suburbs  the  flaming  houses  heard 
the  shrieks  of  women  and  the  moans  of  little 
children,  for  the  beast  was  let  loose.  In  fact, 
there  was  no  Christ  to  stand  between  the  wicked 
man  and  his  victims.  The  scene  was  as  dreadful 
for  that  great  city  as  if  the  bells  of  time  had  tolled 
the  beginning  of  eternity,  while  the  great  serpent 
wound  his  coils  about  the  earth  to  crush  it  into 
nothingness.  That  noise  was  the  crash  of  falling 
domes,  cathedrals  and  tumbling  spires  above  gal¬ 
lery,  and  minister,  with  the  sound  on  the  pavement 
of  pictures  falling  from  their  places,  and  statues 


NEWELL  DWIGHT  HILLIS 


87 


tumbling  from  their  niches,  when  structures  of  art 
and  literature  and  law  and  reform,  manifest  in 
architecture,  came  down  in  full  ruin.  It  was  as  if 
the  sun  had  tumbled  from  the  sky,  leaving  a  black 
socket. 

Of  course,  if  there  were  no  Christ,  our  civiliza¬ 
tion  would  immediately  change.  Christendom 
would  go,  because  there  would  be  no  estimating 
time  from  the  new  era,  beginning  with  the  day 
when  that  beautiful  summer  civilization  set  forth 
from'  Bethlehem.  Time  would  doubtless  begin  with 
the  story  of  Romulus  and  Remus.  The  year  would 
then  be  2753,  and  the  dominant  power  would  be 
the  force  of  that  imperial  city,  for  militarism,  law 
and  government  seated  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber. 
Our  civilization  would  perish  and  sink  into  dust 
with  the  sinking  of  the  teachings  and  example  of 
Christ.  When  we  speak  of  civilization,  we  think 
of  our  ships,  our  office  buildings,  our  factories,  our 
great  industries,  our  schools  and  libraries  and 
churches ;  but  all  is  an  illusion.  What  we  ought  to 
think  about  is  the  ideas,  affections  and  great  con¬ 
victions  that  realized  themselves  in  these  material 
structures.  Suppose  that  every  building  in  the 
United  States  were  blotted  out,  leaving  the  forests, 
minerals,  grains,  fruits  unchanged.  Now  bring  in 
100,000,000  Mohammedans  to  take  the  place  of  the 
Americans.  Soon  the  different  ideas  of  these 
Turks  and  Arabs  would  organize  the  wood  and  the 
iron  and  stone  into  mosques,  minarets,  palaces  for 


88 


WHAT  IF  CHRIST  WERE  NOT  1 


the  Sultan,  harems,  slave  markets,  with  horsemen 
armed  with  spears,  planning  a  raid  across  the  line 
upon  Canada  to  the  north  or  Mexico  to  the  south. 
Different  ideas  coerce  metals,  forests,  stone  quar¬ 
ries,  into  different  forms  of  architecture.  All  this 
gorgeous  equipage  of  civilization  is  but  an  outer 
show  that  is  as  fleeting  as  the  leaf.  The  thing  that 
abides  is  the  thought,  affections  and  visions  of  the 
heart.  Therefore,  touch  the  teachings  of  Jesus  at 
your  peril!  Destroy  Christ’s  teachings  as  to  His 
little  ones,  whose  angels  behold  the  face  of  His 
Father  in  heaven,  and  the  orphan  asylums  and  the 
kindergartens  and  the  schools  would  dissolve,  even 
though  built  of  stone,  like  the  snowflakes  in  Au¬ 
gust.  We  trace  all  granaries,  all  wheat  shocks  and 
sheaves  back  to  that  first  perfect  grain  of  wheat,  in 
which  all  harvests  were  latent.  We  trace  all  noble 
buildings  back  to  the  first  house.  We  trace  a 
great  river  like  the  Mississippi  back  to  a  little 
spring.  And  we  trace  the  outer  institutions  of 
civilization  back  to  the  teachings  of  Jesus  as  a  soul 
made  in  the  image  of  God,  a  soul  that  must  love 
and  serve  its  brothers  and  finally  give  its  account 
unto  God. 

But  if  there  were  no  Christ,  to  whom  would  the 
modern  man  go  in  the  hour  when  the  world  reels 
beneath  his  feet,  the  fog  chokes  his  throat,  and  he 
clutches  at  what  Tennyson  calls  dust  and  straw 
and  chaff,  where  he  needs  to  find  the  rock  ?  When 
the  thoughtful  man  gives  up  that  which  is  good 


NEWELL  DWIGHT  HILLIS 


89 


he  expects  to  obtain  something  that  is  better.  Will 
a  man  leave  a  stone  house  in  time  of  storm  to 
seek  a  frail  tent?  Man’s  body  must  have  food, 
and  his  anxiety  for  harvest  abides.  Man’s  intellect 
must  have  the  truth,  and  more  and  more  he  desires 
books,  and  thirsts  for  knowledge  and  beauty.  All 
these  musical  instruments  found  in  old  museums, 
beginning  with  the  reed,  and  the  rude  strings 
stretched  over  the  mouth  of  sea-shells,  and  the 
drums  of  the  medicine  man,  an  ascending  series 
that  culminates  in  the  pipe  organ,  are  proofs  of 
man’s  artistic  needs.  But  what  about  the  passion 
for  righteousness,  that  deathless  longing  in  the  soul 
of  Augustine,  conscious  of  his  black  sins?  That 
tragic  cry  of  David  calling  unto  the  heavens  for 
pity,  forgiveness  and  cleansing:  that  muffled  sob  in 
the  throat  of  Cicero,  when  he  exclaimed,  after  the 
death  of  his  beloved  daughter,  “  Is  there  a  meeting 
place  for  the  dead?  ”  When  men  were  starving  in 
Armenia  for  want  of  wheat,  they  substituted  grass 
roots,  and  when  Christianity  is  gone,  men  want  a 
substitute.  But  it  cannot  be  found  in  Confucius — 
Confucius  has  had  centuries  for  his  work,  and  the 
end  is  the  Chinese  Wall,  national  exclusiveness, 
polygamy,  the  parents’  right  of  life  and  death  over 
an  unwelcome  female  babe,  the  headsman’s  axe. 
Confucius  has  produced  China,  and  no  American 
will  exchange  this  city  for  what  goes  on  upon  the 
banks  of  the  Yangste  River.  Not  one  of  you  will, 
as  a  substitute,  accept  the  leader  of  the  Brahmins, 


90 


WHAT  IF  CHRIST  WERE  NOT  f 


or  the  Buddhists.  India  is  a  monument  of  that 
faith.  The  English  army  and  Government  have 
abolished  their  Juggernaut  car,  the  burning  of  the 
widows  upon  the  funeral  pile  of  their  dead  hus¬ 
bands,  and  many  other  foul  and  cruel  results  of  the 
Indian  faith,  but  Brahminism  stands  for  the  caste 
system  and  you  are  Americans,  believing  in  equal¬ 
ly* 

You  can  have  no  interest  in  the  harem  or  the 
Zenana,  or  the  idolatrous  orgies,  or  in  the  worship 
of  millions  of  gods  or  in  the  goal  promised  of  a 
“  dreamless  sleep.”  You  can  achieve  unconscious¬ 
ness  in  a  moment  by  a  rope,  a  pistol,  a  little  cyanide 
of  potassium.  But  surely  this  is  not  the  last  work 
of  a  religion  by  which  one  can  live  and  die?  It  is 
certain  also  that  you  will  not  accept  as  a  substitute 
the  Positivism  of  Comte,  with  his  three  hundred 
and  sixty-five  heroes  and  a  new  name  for  each  day, 
to  be  used  as  a  substitute  for  God.  You  know,  as 
you  read  their  names — Cicero,  Lamartine,  Goethe 
— that  the  names  of  these  hundreds  of  men  hold  a 
certain  admixture  of  selfishness  and  vice  and 
meanness  and  even  of  crime.  Nor  can  you  substi¬ 
tute  the  Agnosticism  or  secularism  of  these  teach¬ 
ers  of  to-day.  Witness  Martineau’s  question: 
“  Will  any  moonlit  form  be  seen  kneeling  in  our 
Gethsemanes?  And  rising  from  prostrate  anguish 
to  sublime  repose  through  the  prayer,  ‘  Oh,  thou 
Eternal  Not  Ourselves  that  makes  for  righteous¬ 
ness,  let  this  cup  pass  from  me/  Will  any  cruci- 


NEWELL  DWTIGHT  HXLLXS 


91 


fied  one  lose  the  bitterness  of  death  by  crying, 

‘  Oh,  Stream  of  Tendency,  into  thy  hands  I  commit 
my  spirit 5  ?  To  the  martyr,  stoned  to  death,  will 
any  heaven  open  when  he  exclaims,  ‘  Great  En¬ 
semble  of  Humanity,  receive  me  ’  ?  Will  any 
penitent  soul  pour  out  its  sorrows  to  a  deaf  ideal 
and  shed  its  passionate  tears  on  an  abstraction  that 
cannot  wipe  them  away  ’  ?  ”  But  if  there  were  no 
Christ,  nought  else  is  left  save  these  abstractions. 
If  the  wheaten  loaf  is  not,  it  remains  for  man  to 
clutch  at  the  fog  bank  and  feed  his  hunger  upon 
mist.  It  is  Christ  then — or  nothing! 

But  if  Christ  were  not,  the  human  intellect  loses 
its  only  rational  explanation  ever  given  of  the 
problem  of  suffering  and  sorrow.  To  deny  the 
existence  of  pain  is  as  foolish  as  to  deny  an  earth¬ 
quake  that  destroyed  those  towns  in  Italy,  or  that 
tidal  wave  that  destroyed  Lisbon,  or  the  war  that 
cursed  Belgium  and  France.  Granted  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  summer  and  the  harvests,  we  must  accept 
the  winter  also.  Granted  the  garden,  the  palm 
trees  and  the  fountains,  we  cannot  deny  the  desert, 
and  the  occasional  famine.  Ours  is  a  world  over 
which,  from  time  to  time,  troubles  sweep  like 
sheeted  storms.  No  man  can  escape.  Genius  has 
sought  out  many  inventions,  discovered  many  se¬ 
crets,  but  genius  has  never  built  a  roof  nor  a  door 
that  can  shut  out  trouble.  Soon  or  late  death  robs 
us  of  our  loved  ones.  At  last  comes  the  day  when 
the  grasshopper  becomes  a  burden  and  desire  fails. 


92 


WHAT  IF  CHRIST  WEEE  NOT ! 


At  last  the  messenger  upon  his  errand  of  release 
and  convoy  comes,  not  for  others  this  time,  but  for 
you  yourself.  And  in  the  world  of  selfishness, 
and  ignorance,  and  sin  Jesus  comes  into  collision 
with  the  Pharisees,  and  Roman  governors,  and 
slave  owners,  and  the  more  unyielding  His  con¬ 
victions  and  ideals,  the  fiercer  the  collision.  Denial 
is  not  enough;  mere  denial  of  pain  will  cure  no 
torture  of  the  soul  in  its  Gethsemane.  And  then 
Jesus  enters  the  scene.  His  message  is  that  suf¬ 
ferings  are  educatory;  that  when  the  summer  fails 
to  turn  the  acid  of  the  grapes  to  sugar,  or  sweeten 
the  nuts,  the  frost  completes  the  transformation; 
that  gold  is  tried  in  the  fire,  and  acceptable  men  in 
the  furnace  of  adversity;  that  the  self-sacrifice  of 
one  hero,  with  his  death,  means  life  and  happiness 
to  those  who  come  after;  that  the  greatest  souls 
have  come  out  of  great  tribulation,  from  the  days 
of  Moses  and  Paul,  with  their  martyrdom  and  un¬ 
accomplished  aims,  to  the  days  of  Lincoln  and 
Livingstone;  that  the  richness  of  the  soil  begins 
with  the  glaciers’  ice  plough ;  that  granite  boulders 
are  melted  by  fire  billows,  and  that  slowly,  from 
upheaval,  come  harvests  and  a  soil  fit  for  grow¬ 
ing  the  tree  of  life. 

Earth’s  noblest  souls  have  proven  the  soundness 
of  Christ’s  teaching.  Witness  your  own  experi¬ 
ence.  Hours  there  are  when  for  you  everything 
fails,  and  doubts  come  in;  but  there  is  one  face 
that  shines  like  a  star,  the  face  of  your  beautiful 


NEWELL  DWIGHT  HILLIS 


93 


mother,  who  came  through  all  the  battle  of  life, 
gathering  sweetness,  purity,  tenderness  and  love, 
and  her  testimony  to  the  days  when  she  learned  in 
suffering  the  lessons  of  song,  has  held  you  to  your 
work,  like  an  anchor — sure  and  steadfast.  And 
in  that  hour  of  transfigured  intellect  you  know  that 
Jesus’  philosophy  was  sound,  and  His  secret  sure; 
that  He  alone  had  the  clue  of  the  maze,  and  that, 
therefore,  you  can  go  on  through  all  the  thunder  of 
life’s  battle,  serene  in  the  conviction  that  whom  the 
Lord  loveth  He  chasteneth,  and  that  He  makes  all 
the  sons  of  genius  and  of  goodness  to  be  perfect 
through  suffering.  The  greatest  discovery  that 
our  world  has  ever  known  was  not  Columbus’s  dis¬ 
covery  of  America,  nor  Newton’s  discovery  of 
gravity,  nor  Franklin’s  discovery  of  electricity — 
Earth’s  greatest  discovery — is  the  discovery  of 
growth  and  character  and  salvation  through  suf¬ 
fering,  through  the  surrender  of  the  will  of  man 
to  the  Will  of  God,  and  the  determination  to  do 
right  though  the  heavens  fall.  That  simple  state¬ 
ment  of  the  mission  of  sorrow  and  the  sad  plight 
of  a  world  without  pain  has  transformed  the  world 
and  wrought  a  new  era  for  the  soul,  just  as  the 
doctrine  of  Newton  brought  a  new  era  to 
astronomy. 

But  if  the  world  were  without  Christ,  men  would 
lose  the  motive  to  service  and  heroism.  It  was 
Jesus  who  made  the  sum  of  religion  to  be  service 
pud  kindness,  its  emblem  a  cup  of  cold  water  and 


94 


WHAT  IF  CHRIST  WERE  NOT  ? 


its  genius  to  be  helpful.  The  soul  is  not  self -propul¬ 
sive.  All  sailing  boats  need  winds  for  their  sails. 
There  is  no  locomotive  that  does  not  depend  upon 
some  exterior  power  named  steam  and  coal.  The 
human  soul  is  dependent  upon  motives  for  its  for¬ 
ward  movement.  What  hurled  Paul  along  the 
highway  of  his  life?  What  drove  him  toward 
mobbings,  scourgings,  prisons,  and  unto  death 
itself  ?  That  chariot  of  the  Greek  god  was  hurled 
forward  by  the  fiery  steeds  of  the  sun,  but  as  for 
Paul,  in  his  eager,  passionate  desire  to  serve  gladia¬ 
tors,  slaves,  fugitives,  prisoners,  was  the  word, 
“  The  love  of  Christ  constraineth  me.”  What  led 
that  Roman  boy  who  had  just  heard  the  story  of 
the  Carpenter  upon  the  Cross,  that  Roman  boy  who 
was  a  slave,  and  came  in  from  the  field  to  find 
that  his  young  master  had  drowned,  who  asked  for 
the  place  where  his  young  master  had  gone  down, 
and  when  they  held  him  back,  leaped  into  the  black 
flood,  and  he  felt  around  on  the  bottom  of  the  lake 
and  brought  up  the  body,  and  died  himself?  Surely 
there  was  a  motive  back  of  this  Roman  boy’s  deed. 
He  had  heard  that  “  he  that  loseth  his  life  shall 
save  it.” 

Recall  also  that  little  cripple  in  Switzerland, 
when  the  army  of  the  Austrians  was  crossing  the 
mountain  pass.  A  great  love  of  country  welled 
up  in  the  heart  of  the  little  hunchback.  So  when 
the  sentinels  felt  that  all  was  safe,  because  the 
heavy  snowfall  had  come,  and  they  flung  them- 


NEWELL  DWIGHT  HILLIS 


95 


selves  down  to  sleep,  the  cripple,  at  midnight,  when 
all  was  still,  kept  his  window  up,  drew  the  blankets 
a  little  closer,  and  with  his  head  out  in  the  snow 
listened,  straining  to  hear  the  slightest  sound.  It 
was  his  vigilance  that  detected  the  approach  of  the 
enemy.  The  cripple  wakened  the  sentinels,  and 
the  sentinels  roused  the  soldiers,  and  the  top  of  the 
pass  was  held  and  the  valley  saved.  What  mir¬ 
acles  the  love  of  country  hath  wrought !  Ah,  what 
a  transformer  love  is!  What  impossible  feats  it 
accomplished!  Ten  thousand  beautiful  philan¬ 
thropies  were  born  when  Jesus  said,  “  Their  angels 
do  always  behold  the  face  of  my  Father.,,  “  Inas¬ 
much  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of 
these,  my  little  ones,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me.” 
There  is  on  a  certain  tropic  tree  a  purple  blossom, 
at  the  end  of  the  bough.  Travellers  say  that  if  you 
touch  that  crimson  heart  you  slay  the  glorious 
shrub.  Not  otherwise  touch  at  your  peril  Christ, 
with  His  love  of  the  poor  and  the  weak,  for  when 
the  Master  with  His  motive  of  love  and  brother¬ 
hood  goes,  then  all  the  reforms,  the  beautiful 
philanthropies  perish  also. 

But  if  there  were  no  Christ,  then  the  immortal 
hope  perishes  with  Him.  One  December  day,  Har¬ 
riet  Martineau  wrote  her  friend,  saying:  “  For 
England  the  summer  has  gone,  and  for  me  the 
everlasting  winter  has  set  in.”  And  when  James 
Mill  gave  up  the  Christ  he  said,  “  That  the  clouds 
had  slowly  closed  in  and  choked  all  hope,  and  that 
death  had  become  only  a  leap  into  the  dark,  over 


96 


WHAT  IF  CHEIST  WERE  NOT  f 


a  chasm,  whose  sharp  rocks  held  an  unknown 
power  for  mangling.”  The  philosophers  argued. 
The  poets  have  hoped  for  a  meeting  place  of  the 
dead.  The  lovers  have  cried  out  for  the  beloved 
©ne.  Th&  par^i^s  ha^ve  sobbed,  “  Is  death  a  door 
into  another  room  ?  Or  a  fall  into''a'black  hole  in 
the  ground?  ”  Then  Jesus  stood  at  the  gate  of  the 
sepulchre,  and  His  Message  concerned  the  life  im¬ 
mortal.  What  others  talked  about,  He  saw.  His 
forehead  grazed  the  stars,  He  looked  over  the  top 
of  the  hill,  named  man’s  horizon,  and  saw  afar  off 
the  sweet  fields  of  living  green  in  the  land  of  pure 
delight.  He  plucked  the  fear  out  of  men’s  souls 
as  the  husbandman  plucks  the  tare  out  of  the  wheat, 
as  the  physician  plucks  the  foul  growth  out  of  the 
fair  body,  and  restores  it  to  full  health.  He 
taught  men  that  dying  was  home-going;  that 
heaven  was  the  Father’s  house,  and  that  nothing 
could  ever  injure  God’s  children,  either  here  or 
there,  either  before  death  or  after  death.  The 
sweetest  music  that  ever  fell  over  heaven’s  battle¬ 
ments  are  the  words,  “  In  my  Father’s  house  are 
many  mansions.”  “  Let  not  your  heart  be  trou¬ 
bled,  neither  let  it  be  afraid.”  And  hot  until  men 
prefer  fog  banks  to  wheat  harvests,  the  will-o’-the- 
wisp  light  to  the  guiding  star;  not  until  they  prefer 
candles  flickering  into  the  socket,  to  the  summer¬ 
making  sun,  will  they  prefer  these  tawdry  little 
superstitions  before  that  Divine  Teacher,  whose 
music  is  sphere-music,  and  whose  voice  is  the 
melody  of  the  world. 


VII 


THE  WEAPON  OF  PURITY 

By 

JOHN  A.  HUTTON,  D.  D., 
Minister  of  Belhaven  Church ,  Glasgow 


John  Alexander  Hutton  was  born  at  Coatbridge, 
Lanarkshire,  April  21,  1868.  He  was  educated  at 
Glasgow  University;  ordained  a  Presbyterian  minis¬ 
ter  in  1892 ;  called  to  Bristo  Church,  Edinburgh,  1898 ; 
to  Jesmond,  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  1900;  and  to  Bel- 
haven  Church,  Glasgow,  in  1906,  where  he  is  still 
pastor.  Dr.  Hutton  is  a  searching  preacher,  present¬ 
ing  a  perfect  blending  of  keen  intellectuality  and 
spiritual  insight. 

Among  his  written  works,  all  of  which  are  very 
popular,  must  be  mentioned:  Guidance  from  Robert 
Browning,  In  Matters  of  Faith,  The  Winds  of  God, 
The  Weapons  of  Our  Warfare,  Discerning  the  Times, 
and  Victory  Over  Victory. 


VII 


THE  WEAPON  OF  PURITY 1 


“As  the  heart  panteth  after  the  water  brooks,  so 
panteth  my  soul  after  thee.” — Psalm  42:1. 

NOTHING  can  hinder  us  from  believing 
that  the  Eternal  Spirit,  Who  sent  Jesus 
into  the  world,  sent  also,  securing  it 
by  an  unfathomable  play  of  events  and  circum¬ 
stances,  that  hunger  and  dissatisfaction  and  moral 
tenderness  which  prepared  a  welcome  for  Him  in 
the  human  heart.  God’s  truth  for  an  age  never 
comes  as  a  stranger  to  that  age.  On  the  contrary, 
God  is  so  ready  to  hide  Himself,  that,  when  the 
truth  comes,  the  wise  men  of  the  world  at  the  time 
are  permitted  to  suppose  that  it  was  they  who 
discovered  it,  and  that  they  were  always  sure  that 
the  thing  was  as  now  they  perceive  it  to  be. 

It  is  not  very  common  nowadays,  except'  at 
street  corners  and  in  open  spaces  where  one  may 
still  have  the  spectacle  of  a  man  plunging  about  in 
the  backwash  of  an  old  controversial  method — it  is 
not  very  common  nowadays  to  have  it  quoted 
against  Christian  truth,  or  against  the  force  of  a 
moral  idea,  that  there  is  already  a  hunger  and 

1  From  The  Weapons  of  our  Warfare  and  with  permission 
of  Messrs.  Hodder  and  Stoughton. 

99 


100 


THE  WEAPON  OF  PURITY 


thirst  for  it  in  human  hearts.  On  the  contrary, 
the  most  lively  school  of  thought  in  our  day  is 
apt  to  err  on  the  other  side,  declaring  that  the  one 
mark  of  truth  is  that  it  works,  that  it  fits  the  facts 
and  suits  our  very  case.  If  the  allegation  is  put 
forward  that  Christianity  made  its  way  in  the 
world  simply  because  it  accommodated  itself  to  the 
need  of  the  time  and  offered  people  anything  they 
wanted,  it  is  a  false  accusation  and  can  be  repelled 
by  some  quite  obvious  facts.  For  example  it  is  quite 
apparent  from  even  a  casual  reading  of  the  New 
Testament  that  the  early  Church  is  already  aware 
that  she  is  engaged  in  a  warfare  against  the  world. 
She  sees  clearly  that  it  is  her  doom  and  calling  to 
protest  against  the  general  mood  of  the  time.  The 
later  books  of  the  New  Testament  are  concerned 
with  almost  nothing  else  than  to  warn  Christians, 
both  as  individuals  and  as  communities,  that  they 
have  committed  themselves  in  Christ  to  a  Cause 
and  a  Spirit  which  will  range  the  world  against 
them,  which  will  encounter  the  spiritual  habit  and 
inertia  of  long  ages,  which  will  provoke  unsus¬ 
pected  antagonisms ;  in  short,  that  Christianity  is  a 
declaration  of  war,  an  unsheathing  of  the  sword; 
“  Ours  is  not  a  conflict  with  mere  flesh  and  blood, 
but  with  the  despotisms,  the  empires,  the  forces 
that  control  and  govern  this  dark  world.”  I  de¬ 
tect  no  trace  of  accommodation  in  such  a  saying, 
and  it  is  but  one  of  a  thousand.  The  fact  is, 
Christianity  did  fall  in  with  the  profound  neces- 


JOHN  A.  HUTTON 


101 


sities  of  the  human  heart  in  those  days.  But  the 
necessities  in  the  human  heart  which  laid  hold  on 
Christianity  were  the  last  necessities  of  our  com¬ 
mon  human  nature,  the  invincible  cries  which  will 
always  break  from  man,  because  he  is  what  he  is. 
And  in  order  to  help  man  at  the  depths  Christianity 
did  not  hesitate  to  offend  and  rebuke  man  in  his 
superficial  and  temporary  requirements. 

It  is  true,  I  think,  of  every  high  thing  which 
assails  us  and  appeals  to  us  in  the  name  of  God, 
that  there  is  something  in  us  which  holds  out  hands 
to  it  and  there  is  something  in  us  which  at  the 
same  moment  hesitates  or  shrinks  back.  It  is  a 
sure  sign  that  we  are  face  to  face  with  something 
from  God,  something  with  which  we  had  better 
come  to  terms,  that  at  the  same  moment  we  want 
it  and  we  do  not  want  it,  we  like  it  and  we  do  not 
like  it. 

When  Jehoshaphat  and  Ahab  were  in  a  difficulty 
as  to  whether  they  should  go  to  war  against  Syria, 
some  officials  had  assured  them  that  it  was  God’s 
will  that  they  should  go.  Jehoshaphat,  who  was  a 
good  man,  was  not  easy  in  his  mind.  It  seemed 
to  him  that  those  officials  had  been  suborned  to 
say  what  they  had  said.  “  Is  there  not  some  man 
of  God,”  said  he  to  Ahab,  “  by  whom  we  might 
enquire  of  the  Lord  ?  ”  “  There  is,”  said  Ahab, 

with  some  heat ;  “  there  is  one  man  by  whom  we 
might  enquire  of  the  Lord,  Micaiah,  the  son  of 
Imlah;  but  I  hate  him,  for  he  doth  not  prophesy 


102 


THE  WEAPON  OF  PURITY 


good  concerning  me  but  evil.”  “  That  is  the  very 
man  for  us  to  hear,”  said  Jehoshaphat. 

There  is  always  something  in  truth  which  we 
like,  and  something  which  we  do  not  like.  It  is 
always  proof  that  the  matter  is  one  with  which 
we  ought  to  come  to  terms — that  we  like  it  and  do 
not  like  it  at  the  same  moment.  Christianity  had 
those  simultaneous  marks  of  truth:  there  was 
something  in  it  which  the  world  resented  and  hated, 
and  tried  to  put  away;  and  all  the  time  there  was 
that  in  it  for  which  the  world  in  the  last  solitudes 
and  realities  of  its  own  self-consciousness  patheti¬ 
cally  cried  out.  Looking  back  over  those  days, 
and  observing  with  what  fidelity  to  its  own  ethical 
genius  the  Church  dealt  with  the  world  without 
indulging  that  mood,  how  it  refused  to  follow  the 
easy  way  to  power,  how  it  was  able  at  once  to 
condemn  the  world  and  to  attract  it — looking  back, 
I  say,  it  is  not  possible  to  doubt  that  wherever  the 
two  or  three  were  met  together  Christ  was  in  the 
midst,  guiding. 

There  were  three  lines,  we  were  saying,  along 
which  Christianity  moved  and  overcame  the  world ; 
and  first  by  the  attractiveness  of  its  faith. 

Let  me  pass  now  to  the  second  element  of 
power — the  new  and  haunting  quality  of  Christian 
goodness.  By  the  wonderful  pressure,  as  we  be¬ 
lieve,  of  the  Spirit  of  God  upon  the  hearts  of  men, 
there  was  already  abroad  in  the  world  in  the  first 
days  of  Christianity  a  real  and  widely  experienced 


JOHN  A.  HUTTON 


103 


*  desire  for  moral  purity  and  cleanness.  It  was  one 
of  those  times  which  come  when,  it  may  be,  men 
do  not  see  their  way  clearly,  when  they  do  not  see 
for  the  time  being  how  things  on  a  wide  scale  are 
to  be  improved,  when  the  mind  in  consequence  is 
driven  in  upon  itself,  and  we  perceive  that  al¬ 
though  there  may  be  no  open  vision,  nevertheless 
we  need  not  be  idle  in  the  work  of  God;  that  there 
is  a  work  to  be  done  within  ourselves.  However, 
it  may  be  explained  historically,  there  had  come 
over  the  human  heart  in  those  days  a  great  yearn¬ 
ing  to  be  made  clean,  to  be  free  from  moral  guilt, 
to  be  done  with  all  interior  disorder  and  entangle¬ 
ment.  In  those  days,  and  in  pursuit  of  this  per¬ 
sonal  rightness  and  integrity,  the  most  popular 
ceremony  was  a  sacrament  called  the  “  taurobo- 
lium.”  Let  me  say  what  it  was,  leaving  it  to  your¬ 
selves  to  perceive  what  a  place  for  Christ  life  had 
evidently  laid  open  in  the  souls  of  men.  In  the 
mystery  of  the  “  taurobolium  ”  the  suppliant  stood 
or  knelt  beneath  a  scaffolding  of  wood.  On  the 
wooden  platform  above  his  head  a  bull  was  slain, 
and  its  blood  poured  through  the  grating,  drench- 
-ing  the  suppliant  beneath. 

It  was  man’s  profound  insight  into  his  moral 
necessities.  It  was  man,  urged  by  the. 'Spirit'  of 
God,  trying  to  find  his  -Way  home.  It  was’  his 
discovery,  guided  by  delicate  organs  of  moral  per¬ 
ception,  that  death  was  the  only  way  to  newness  of 
life;  and  that  it  was  not  his  own  death  merely 


104 


THE  WEAPON  OF  PUKITY 


which  brought  down  the  blessing,  but  his  sharing 
as  it  were  in  the  very  life  of  death. 

It  was  into  this  troubled  and  uneasy  world,  with 
its  pathetic  and  puzzled  half-beliefs,  with  its  in¬ 
sistent  cry  for  better  things,  that  the  disciples  of 
Jesus  came.  They  lived  their  life  before  the  eyes 
of  men.  They  declared  that  they  had  achieved  this 
moral  peace  and  cleanness.  Men  and  women  joined 
them  from  the  world,  men  and  women  in  many 
cases  with  such  a  past  history  that  outsiders  made 
merry  over  their  new  profession.  “If  He  were 
a  good  man,”  it  had  been  said  of  their  Master, 
“  He  would  have  knowm  that  this  woman  was  a 
sinner.”  And  the  world  said  the  same  of  the 
Church.  But  even  the  world  could  not  deny  that 
those  who  had  been  sinners  took  on  a  new  grace, 
as  though  by  some  mysterious  chemistry  the  very 
elements  of  their  nature  had  been  transformed. 
Sufferings  came  to  them,  as  we  shall  see,  sufferings 
of  such  ingenuity  and  horror,  that  we  cannot  even 
bear  to  describe  them ;  but  they  endured  by  the  help 
as  it  seemed  of  some  Ally  beyond  nature  and 
beyond  mere  human  experience.  All  their  words 
and  ideas  wTere  full  of  a  beautiful  confidence  as  to 
the  way  by  which  God  was  pleased  to  be  leading 
them.  Nothing  could  come  upon  them  unawares. 
If  they  lived,  well;  if  they  died,  once  again  it  was 
well.  If  the  sky  was  fair  for  them,  they  would 
praise  the  Lord ;  if  the  sky  was  foul,  they  still  had 
the  resource  of  prayer.  The  Prince  of  this  world 


JOHN  A.  HUTTON 


105 


came  and  found  nothing  in  them.  They  were  pre¬ 
pared  for  everything.  If  you  asked  them  the 
secret  of  this  supernatural  peace,  they  might  utter 
some  mysterious  word  like  “  Maranatha — the  Lord 
is  near.”  They  had  found  what  all  the  world  was 
seeking  for.  The  presence  of  some  Holy  Guest 
hung  about  them,  at  their  work,  in  their  home, 
purifying  everything,  sanctifying  everything.  This 
Holy  One  had  once  upon  a  time  been  here;  they 
themselves  knew  some  one  who  had  actually  spoken 
with  Him ;  or  in  later  years  they  knew  many  who 
had  in  turn  known  one  who  had  actually  seen  Him 
die  on  Calvary  and  appear  again,  risen  from  the 
dead,  in  the  upper  room. 

At  the  time  when  He  went  away  He  had  prom¬ 
ised  to  come  again.  It  might  be  that  they  had  been 
looking  for  Him  to  come  too  soon;  because  now 
years  had  passed  and  He  had  not  yet  come.  But 
the  delay,  though  a  disappointment  to  their  natural 
sense,  was  not  so  hard  to  bear  as  the  world  might 
think.  True,  He  had  not  come ;  still  He  had  come, 
and  was  with  them  always.  As  St.  Paul  had  said, 
“  There  is  first  that  which  is  natural,  and  after¬ 
wards  that  which  is  spiritual !  ”  In  the  growing 
refinement  of  their  natures  they  began  to  ask  them¬ 
selves  what  more  they  would  have  from  their  Lord 
than  He  was  daily  giving  them.  In  any  case  He 
had  not  left  them  comfortless;  they  had  bread  to 
eat  that  the  world  knew  not  of.  Besides,  it  might 
be  God’s  will  for  them  that  they  should  go  to  Him 


106 


THE  WEAPON  OF  PUEITY 


rather  than  that  He  should  come  to  them.  And 
death  was  now  no  dreadful  trap-door  through 
which  the  soul  fell  down  into  darkness.  It  was 
the  gateway  into  new  life — a  gate  which  they  had 
seen  opened  for  many  of  their  friends,  and  as  it 
opened  they  had  seen  with  their  own  eyes  the  light 
of  that  glorious  place,  falling  upon  the  countenance 
of  one  whom  Christ  was  calling  home.  They  were 
so  very  sure  of  God  that  they  were  tempted  some¬ 
times  to  wish  that  this  present  life  would  come 
quickly  to  an  end;  but  their  teachers  and  their 
sacred  books  had  bidden  them  be  patient  and  show 
by  their  very  patience  that  they  had  no  doubts 
about  God.  In  the  second  century  the  leaders  of 
the  Church  had  to  issue  instructions  to  Christian 
people  that  they  should  pray  for  the  delay  of  the 
Lord’s  coming.  His  communion  with  them  was 
already  sufficient,  it  would  appear.  Meanwhile, 
they  wanted  to  spare  humanity,  to  increase  the 
number  of  those  who  might  share  in  the  glory  of 
the  Lord. 

So  on  and  on,  one  might  imagine  and  describe 
the  kind  of  life  they  lived,  for  whom  the  memory 
of  Jesus  was  still  a  living  thing  and  for  whom  that 
memory  was  penetrated  by  an  unquestioning  hope. 

That  is  the  point  which  Pater  makes  in  his 
Marius  the  Epicurean,  the  story  of  one  who  acted 
as  the  amanuensis  to  Marcus  Aurelius.  (The 
story  opens  with  Marius  as  a  little  boy  leaving 
home  for  school,  for  the  Eton  of  Harrow  of  his 


JOHN  A.  HUTTON 


107 


day.  His  mother  wanted  to  say  something  to  him 
as  a  last  instruction,  but  did  not  know  what  to 
say — and  there  is  nothing  more  difficult  than  to 
kno\t  what  to  say  at  such  a  time:  the  Lord  Him¬ 
self  did  not  know  what  to  say  to  His  disciples  when 
He  was  about  to  leave  them,  so  He  did  not  say 
anything  at  all,  but  took  a  towel  and  washed  the 
disciples’  feet — this  mother  did  not  know  what  to 
say  just  as  the  last  thing  she  would  like  to  say. 
She  took  the  boy  away  into  her  room,  and  as  they 
looked  across  the  Campagna,  she  put  her  hand 
upon  his  shoulder  and  said,  “  Marius,  a  white  bird 
which  you  are  to  carry  with  unsullied  wings  across 
a  crowded  public  place;  your  soul  is  like  that.” 
That  is  only  a  hint  of  the  incomparable  felicities 
both  of  feeling  and  expression  which  you  will  find 
in  Marius,  which  I  have  no  hesitation  in  advising 
you  to  read. ) 

What  impresses  Pater  in  those  first  three  cen¬ 
turies  is  the  wonderful  consecration  which  Chris¬ 
tianity  brought,  the  consecration  of  the  elementary 
functions  of  life — marriage,  birth,  death.  How  it 
purified  those  elementary  functions!  How  it 
placed  the  proper  garland  upon  the  brow  of 
woman,  and  hailed  in  each  little  child  a  gift  from 
heaven !  Perhaps  you  are  not  aware  that  in  those 
days,  which  were  in  so  many  ways  so  intellectual 
and  advanced,  there  were  moral  enormities  that 
simply  are  staggering  to  us.  It  was  a  very  com¬ 
mon  thing,  not  only  among  ignorant  people — to 


108 


THE  WEAPON  OF  PUKITY 


throw  out  little  children  who  were  not  wanted  by 
their  parents.  It  contributed  enormously  to  the 
enlargement  of  the  Church  in  its  membership,  that 
the  Church  picked  up  those  little  children  and 
trained  them,  creating  within  them  by  the  atmos¬ 
phere  of  love  a  natural  appetite  for  the  things  of 
the  Spirit. 

We  only  need  to  know  our  own  essential  nature 
— that  by  God’s  appointment  there  is  something  in 
man  which  will  forever  lay  him  open  to  the  appeal 
of  goodness;  that  the  sight  of  moral  beauty,  of  an 
obvious  contentment  in  this  world  and  victory  over 
its  fear,  will  always  raise  in  the  souls  of  men  who 
behold  such  things  the  question  whether  this  is  not 
the  one  true  way— we  only  need  to  believe  that 
man  is  so  made  and  is  finally  susceptible  to  such 
things,  to  see  that  such  a  community  of  faith  and 
hope  and  love  as  was  the  Church  of  the  early  days, 
was  bound  to  gain  the  victory  over  a  disordered 
and  unhappy  world.  Like  God  Himself,  man  “  is 
the  same  yesterday  and  to-day  and  forever/’  We 
often  ask  ourselves  by  what  means  the  Church  of 
Christ  shall  ever  again  resume  the  story  of  her 
own  best  days.  There  is  only  one  way.  It  is  no 
part  of  our  duty  to  lay  schemes  for  achieving 
worldly  success.  We  have  but  one  thing  to  do. 
We  are  here  as  Christians  and  as  Christian  com¬ 
munities  to  attest  to  the  world,  and  to  make  in¬ 
carnate  a  quality  of  life  which  is  beyond  its  reach. 
We  cannot  by  any  stated  argument  convince  those 


JOHN  A.  HUTTON 


109 


who  are  without  the  reality  of  the  deepest  things. 
Only  the  presence  of  holy  and  beautiful  lives  will 
ever  awaken  in  the  world  the  sense  of  its  own 
capacity  and  in  the  same  moment  the  sense  of  its 
own  shortcoming. 

In  the  story  of  the  rich  young  ruler  who  came 
to  Jesus,  it  is  not  without  significance  that  in  each 
of  the  gospel  narratives  the  incident  occurs  just 
after  Jesus  had  taken  little  children  into  His  arms 
and  had  laid  hands  upon  them  and  blessed  them. 
And  what  the  conjunction  of  incidents  means  for 
me  is  just  this:  it  was  the  sight  of  that  perfectly 
simple  and  beautiful  thing  which  stirred  in  the 
man’s  heart  an  unsuspected  or  half-suspected  crav¬ 
ing  for  whatever  of  the  same  blessedness  might 
yet  be  possible  for  such  as  he. 

For  this  is  our  faith,  as  it  was  the  faith  of  our 
Master,  that  the  presence  amongst  men,  of  perfect 
moral  beauty,  will  soon  or  late  break  the  bars  of 
iron  in  sunder  and  throw  open  the  everlasting 
doors. 


VIII 

WILLING  AND  KNOWING 


By 

W.  R.  INGE,  D.  D.,  C.  V.  0, 
Dean  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral ,  London 


William  Ralph  Inge  was  Dbrn  at  Crayke,  York¬ 
shire,  June  6,  i860.  He  was  educated  at  King’s 
College,  Cambridge  University;  Vice  President  of 
the  Royal  Society  of  Literature;  Fellow  of  Jesus  Col¬ 
lege,  Cambridge  and  Hertford  College,  Oxford;  and 
Gifford  Lecturer  St.  Andrew’s  University  1917-18. 
In  1911  Dr.  Inge  became  Dean  of  St.  Paul’s  Cathe¬ 
dral.  Known  to  many  as  the  “  Gloomy  Dean,”  Dr. 
Inge  is  one  of  the  most  profound  thinkers  in  the 
active  ministry  to-day,  and  as  a  scholar,  has  few,  if 
any,  equals  in  the  English-speaking  world.  Among 
his  published  works  are :  Christian  Mysticism, 
Speculum  Animce,  Personal  Idealism  and  Mysticism, 
The  Philosophy  of  Plotinus ,  Faith  and  Knowledge 
and  Outspoken  Essays. 


VIII 


WILLING  AND  KNOWING 


“If  any  man  willeth  to  do  his  will,  he  shall  know 
of  the  doctrine  ” — John  7: 17. 


THESE  words  of  our  Blessed  Lord  seem 
to  me  to  point  the  way  to  the  solution  of 
a  very  old  controversy,  which  still  divides 
us.  What  is  the  nature  of  religious  faith?  Is  it 
an  act  of  trust,  or  is  it  conviction?  Is  it  a  work¬ 
ing  hypothesis,  or  the  result  of  reasoning?  Is  it 
an  attitude  of  the  will,  which  selects  for  acceptance 
those  ideas  which  help  us  to  live  as  we  desire  to 
live,  or  is  it  an  apprehension  of  absolute  truth? 
The  question  was  already  discussed  by  the  school¬ 
men  of  the  Middle  Ages,  some  of  whom  based 
faith  on  the  mystical  intuition  which  enlightens  the 
eyes  of  the  understanding,  while  others  maintained 
that  its  nature  is  practical,  and  in  no  wise  specula¬ 
tive. 

I  wish  to  consider  the  question  as  a  religious,  not 
as  a  philosophical  problem,  and  to  treat  it  as  a 
problem  which  deeply  concerns  every  one  of  us. 
Let  me  sum  up  shortly  what  might  be  said  on 
each  side. 

Faith  is  and  must  be  a  venture;  we  walk  by 
faith,  not  by  sight.  Faith  is  the  resolution  to  stand 
or  fall  by  the  noblest  hypothesis.  It  must  be  a 

IJ3 


114 


WILLING  AND  KNOWING 


matter  of  the  will  rather  than  of  the  intellect,  both 
because  ultimate  truth  is  beyond  our  reach,  and 
because,  whether  consciously  or  unconsciously,  our 
world  is  constructed  out  of  those  facts  which  inter¬ 
est  us  and  bear  upon  our  own  needs.  We  do  not 
and  cannot  see  life  steadily  and  see  it  whole;  we 
see  what  lies  in  our  path — the  stepping-stones  and 
stumbling-blocks  which  we  have  to  use  or  avoid. 
We  have  to  practice  the  difficult  art  of  living  in  a 
world  which  we  do  not  understand.  Religion  is 
the  chief  portion  of  this  art.  Truth  is  relative  to 
our  spiritual  need ;  it  has  been  said  whatever  helps 
our  souls  is  true.  From  this  point  of  view,  religion 
is  a  kind  of  mind-cure;  it  is  to  be  studied  and 
practiced  as  a  man  learns  an  art  or  uses  a^  remedy. 
If  we  wish  to  learn  an  art,  we  put  ourselves  under 
a  training  which  experts  tell  us  will  make  us 
proficient  in  it;  we  are  content  if  this  result  fol¬ 
lows.  If  we  wish  to  remedy  some  physical  defect 
in  ourselves,  the  true  remedy  is  that  which  cures 
us.  For  example,  if  our  eyesight  is  bad,  we  buy 
a  pair  of  spectacles  which  will  help  us  to  see  like 
other  people.  We  do  not  inquire  whether  the 
spectacles  are  true;  their  value  for  us  depends  on 
their  not  being  true  for  healthy  eyes.  We  are  told 
that  those  who  do  not  understand  that  this  is  the 
function  of  religion,  criticize  the  beliefs  of  their 
neighbours  from  a  wrong  point  of  view.  Such 
books,  for  example,  as  Lord  Morley’s  essay  on 
Compromise,  waste  a  great  deal  of  virtuous  indig- 


W.  R.  INGE 


115 


nation  on  the  intellectual  disingenuousness  of  re¬ 
ligious  people  who  he  says  profess  to  believe 
dogmas  which  they  ought  to  know  to  be  untrue. 
The  assumption  all  through  such  books  is  that 
religious  truth  is  a  branch  of  scientific  truth, 
whereas  it  is  really  a  method  of  ordering  the  whole 
life  with  a  view  of  the  formation  of  character. 

Those  who  think  in  this  way  set  but  a  small  value 
on  the  labours  of  critics  and  philosophers,  unless 
they  devote  their  talents  to  the  advocacy  of  tradi¬ 
tional  dogmas.  The  Liberal  Churchman  seems  to 
them  to  be  a  man  who  has  taken  up,  perhaps 
almost  by  accident,  the  study  of  theology,  and  who 
treats  it,  in  an  abstract  manner,  like  any  other 
science,  a  method  under  which  its  religious  value 
evaporates,  and  its  therapeutic  efficacy  almost  dis¬ 
appears.  They  can  find  many  well-worn  maxims 
ready  at  their  hand,  such  as  that  “  God  has  not 
willed  to  save  His  people  by  dialectic,”  and  that  the 
heart  has  its  reasons  which  the  intellect  knows 
not  of. 

Scholars  and  thinkers  must  admit  the  partial 
truth  of  this  charge  against  them.  They  know 
how  easily  the  logical  intellect  transforms  vital  in¬ 
terests  into  dialectical  counters.  They  know  how 
easy  it  is  to  personify  their  own  opinions  and  those 
of  their  opponents,  labelled  probably  with  their 
names,  and  to  forget,  in  the  excitement  of  an  in¬ 
tellectual  tournament,  that  they  are  dealing  with 
the  mysteries  of  time  and  eternity,  and  with  the 


116 


WILLING  AND  KNOWING 


struggle  of  overburdened  men  and  women  to  find 
their  way  and  to  work  out  their  own  salvation 
with  fear  and  trembling.  The  intellectual  study  of 
religion  is  an  abstract  science;  so  are  all  other 
sciences;  and  though  the  aim  of  philosophy  is  to 
coordinate  and  at  last  to  rise  above  abstractions,  no 
sane  thinker  counts  himself  to  have  apprehended. 

And  yet  I  cannot  think  that  we  ought  to  be  con¬ 
tent  with  a  merely  subjective  and  relative  standard 
of  truth  in  religion.  The  God  who  has  made  us 
for  Himself,  and  who  will  not  let  our  hearts  rest 
till  they  find  rest  in  Him,  has  not  so  hidden  His 
face  from  us  that  we  cannot  know  Him,  however 
dimly  and  imperfectly,  as  He  is.  And  we  cannot 
really  hold  that  there  are  for  us  two  standards  or 
two  kinds  of  truths,  one  speculative  or  scientific, 
and  the  other  practical.  Our  minds  are  not  divided 
or  divisible,  and  we  cannot  with  impunity  play 
tricks  with  our  reason,  either  to  stimulate  our 
wills  or  to  win  inward  peace.  There  is  after  all  a 
sterling  sincerity  in  the  negations  of  the  honest 
rationality  which  we  miss  in  such  utterances  as 
this  of  Renan:  “  What  a  delight  to  the  man  who 
is  weighed  down  by  six  days  of  toil,  to  come  on 
the  seventh  to  rest  upon  his  knees,  to  contemplate 
tall  columns,  arches,  and  altar,  to  listen  to  the 
chanting,  to  hear  moral  and  consoling  words.  It  is 
the  privilege  of  pure  sentiment  to  be  invulnerable 
and  to  play  with  poison  without  being  hurt  by  it.” 
This  is  no  doubt  a  crude  and  half-contemptuous 


W.  E.  INGE 


117 


description  of  a  very  common  attitude,  which  is 
familiar  to  us  in  the  phrase  “  the  consolations  of 
religion/’  as  if  religion  were  a  species  of  anodyne, 
a  cure  for  soul-ache.  There  is  surely  a  levity,  an 
indifference  to  truth,  or  a  deep  scepticism,  in  those 
who  can  use  such  language.  I  prefer  the  harsh 
dictum  of  the  rationalist,  that  every  wish  to  be¬ 
lieve,  when  it  is  dragged  into  the  open,  is  a  reason 
for  doubt.  There  is  an  asceticism  of  the  intellect, 
which  though  it  may  be  carried  too  far,  is  itself  a 
noble  thing.  There  are  men  who  are  afraid  to 
accept  what  their  souls — their  whole  selves — bid 
them  to  believe,  because  they  know  that  they  long 
to  believe  it  and  because  it  cannot  be  proved.  This 
kind  of  renunciation  is  an  act  of  homage  to  truth 
as  an  absolute  principle;  I  do  not  think  that  it  in¬ 
jures  the  character,  though  it  makes  life  less  bright 
than  it  ought  to  be.  But  in  those  who  indulge 
what  is  called  the  wish  to  believe;  who  fly  under 
the  wings  of  authority  to  escape  the  buffetings  of 
doubt;  who  grasp  at  an  inward  peace  which  they 
have  not  earned;  who  make  religion  a  matter  of 
emotion  or  sentiment  or  aesthetic  thrill,  I  have 

observed  that  not  onlv  the  intellect  but  the  moral 

•/ 

sense  loses  its  finer  qualities.  A  faith  that  is  pro¬ 
cured  ready-made  gives  but  little  guidance  where 
no  authoritative  precepts  can  be  had.  It  is  in  re¬ 
ligious  persons  of  this  type  that  we  find  the  most 
incurable  obtuseness  in  the  face  of  new  duties  not 
sanctioned  by  tradition — such  for  example  as  our 


118 


WILLING  AND  KNOWING 


obligations  to  the  lower  animals,  and  to  posterity. 
Nor  do  I  think  that  this  kind  of  religion  often  rises 
above  enthusiastic  loyalty  to  its  institution ;  it  does 
not  seem  to  those  outside  to  do  much  in  making  the 
institution  more  worthy  of  loyalty. 

The  social  psychologists  have  failed,  I  think,  to 
tell  us  what  religious  beliefs  ought  to  be.  They 
have  missed  what  is  the  most  essential  quality  of 
faith — that  is  a  devotion  to  absolute  values,  to 
which  we  pay  homage  as  being  absolute,  eternal, 
universal  and  indestructible  truths  which  claim  our 
allegiance  in  their  own  right,  as  ends  in  themselves, 
and  not  means  to  anything  else,  not  even  to  our 
own  happiness  or  the  happiness  of  others,  or  a 
better  social  order,  or  anything  else  that  we  wish 
for  on  earth.  The  religious  man,  of  course,  be¬ 
lieves  that  the  universe  is  under  divine  law,  and 
that  this  law  is  ultimately  in  agreement  with  the 
spiritual  laws  which  have  been  revealed  to  us.  He 
believes  that  if  he  surrenders  happiness  as  his 
immediate  aim,  he  will  win,  for  himself  and  others, 
what  Christ  in  the  Beatitudes  calls  blessedness,  but 
which  may,  if  we  will,  be  called  a  higher  and  deeper 
happiness.  But  the  objects  of  faith  are  beyond 
this  bourne  of  time  and  place;  they  are  not  to  be 
degraded  into  means  for  any  earthly  end;  nor  do 
their  truth  and  value  consist  in  the  use  which  we 
can  make  of  them. 

The  psychologists  have  failed  to  show  us  what 
faith  ought  to  be  and  may  be.  But  they  have  done 


W.  R.  INGE 


119 


good  service  in  laying  bare  the  actual  springs  of 
what  often  passes  for  faith.  The  mind  of  the 
average  man  is  a  confused  medley  of  sentiments, 
prejudices,  and  self-centered  interests,  which  de¬ 
termine  his  opinions  on  religion  as  on  anything 
else.  “  Such  as  men  themselves  are,  such  will  God 
appear  to  them  to  be,”  as  a  deep  Christian  thinker 
of  the  seventeenth  century  said.  The  religion  of 
the  average  man  is  a  reflection  of  his  undisciplined 
self— an  unassorted  mixture  of  second-hand 
opinions,  adopted  in  laziness  and  maintained  in 
obstinacy.  He  never  probes  his  mind,  and  is 
actually  unable  to  distinguish  between  what  he 
would  like  to  believe  and  what  he  has  reason  to 
believe.  The  luxuriant  crop  of  superstitions  which 
at  the  present  time  chokes  the  soil  of  the  rational 
mind  is  the  result  of  a  mental  indiscipline  which 
hardly  rises  to  the  level  of  intellectual  dishonesty, 
because  the  intellect  never  acts  freely  at  all. 

The  best  account  of  faith  that  I  know  is  that  of 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  who  was  perhaps  not  a 
great  philosopher,  but  was  one  of  the  most  enlight¬ 
ened  as  well  as  the  most  attractive  of  the  Christian 
Fathers.  He  says  that  there  are  three  stages  in  the 
spirit  life. — Faith,  Knowledge  and  Love.  Faith, 
he  defines  as  compendious  Knowledge,  and  Knowl¬ 
edge  as  scientific  Faith.  Faith  and  Love,  he  says, 
are  not  taught.  He  means  that  Faith  begins  as 
an  act  of  choice;  it  is  an  experiment  which  passes 
into  experience.  It  verifies  itself  with  the  help  of 


120 


WILLING  AND  KNOWING 


reverent  and  open-minded  inquiry,  an  inquiry 
which  is  only  possible  to  those  who  are  earnestly 
trying  to  live  out  their  thoughts  and  to  think  out 
their  lives.  (He  is  not  afraid  of  the  word  of 
Gnosis,  and  will  not  surrender  it  to  heretical 
Gnostics;  the  word  is  too  precious,  for  it  asserts 
that  knowledge  of  God  is  possible  to  man.)  And 
the  pursuit  of  Knowledge,  as  he  understands  it,  is 
as  far  from  leading  us  to  arid  pedantry  and  jug¬ 
gling  with  bloodless  categories,  that  it  makes  us  fit 
to  receive  the  gift  of  divine  Love,  which,  like  Faith, 
is  “  not  taught.”  This  Love,  he  says  (for  like  all 
Platonists  he  ends  in  mysticism) ,  is  the  communion, 
or  even  the  union  of  the  knower  and  the  known. 
He  who  has  reached  this  state  may  be  said  to  be, 
in  the  words  of  St.  Luke,  equal  to  the  angels.  It 
is  the  same  path  from  earth  to  heaven  which  is 
traced  by  Coleridge: 

“  He  first  by  fear  uncharmed  the  drowsed  soul, 
Till  of  its  noblest  nature  it  can  feel 
Dim  recollections ;  and  thence  soared  to  hope, 
Strong  to  believe  whate’er  of  mystic  good 
The  Eternal  dooms  for  His  immortal  sons ; 

From  hope  and  firmer  faith  to  perfect  love 
Attracted  and  absorbed ;  and  centred  there, 

God  only  to  behold  and  know  and  feel 
Till  by  exclusive  consciousness  of  God 
All  self  annihilated,  it  shall  make 
God  its  identity— God  all  in  all! 

We  and  our  Father  one 

And  blest  are  they 

Who  in  this  fleshly  world,  the  elect  of  heaven, 


W.  E.  INGE 


121 


Their  strong  eye  darting  through  the  deeds  of 
men, 

Adore  with  steadfast  unpresuming  gaze 
Him,  nature’s  essence,  mind  and  energy; 

And  gazing,  trembling,  patiently  ascend, 
Treading  beneath  their  feet  all  visible  things 
As  steps,  that  upward  to  their  Father’s  throne 
Lead  gradual.” 

The  same  writer  says  in  prose:  “Evidence  of 
Christianity!  I  am  weary  of  the  word.  Make  a 
man  feel  the  want  of  it.  Rouse  him  if  you  can  to 
the  self-knowledge  of  his  need  of  it,  and  you  may 
safely  trust  it  to  its  own  evidence,  remembering 
only  the  express  declaration  of  Christ  Himself, 
No  man  cometh  unto  me  unless  the  Father  draw 
him.” 

I  wish  to  apply  these  thoughts  to  the  matter  of 
religious  doubt.  We  must  begin  by  admitting  that 
our  strongest  and  most  permanent  interests  will 
almost  certainly  determine  our  view  of  the  world 
generally,  and  therefore,  our  religion,  which  sums 
up  our  experience  of  life.  There  are  some  whose 
world  is  a  playground,  or  a  counting-house,  or  an 
arena,  or  a  stage.  That  is  the  world  in  which  they 
have  chosen  to  live,  and  they  have  made  for  them¬ 
selves  a  world  of  this  kind,  in  their  own  image. 
It  is  not  the  real  world,  but  it  is  their  world;  and 
there  is  not  much  room  for  God  in  it.  Until  they 
change  their  dominant  interests,  they  will  see  no 
other  world;  they  will  continue,  in  the  word  of  the 
Old  Testament,  to  live  in  the  light  of  the  sparks 


122 


WILLING  AND  KNOWING 


that  they  have  kindled.  Therefore,  the  first  ques¬ 
tion  which  we  have  to  ask  ourselves  is,  What  are 
my  dominant  interests  in  life?  What  are  the 
subjects  to  which  my  leisure  thoughts  most  readily 
turn?  What  do  I  most  earnestly  desire  to  gain; 
and  what  do  I  most  anxiously  fear  to  lose?  These 
are  not  very  difficult  questions  to  answer,  but  if 
we  have  not  made  a  habit  of  putting  them  to  our¬ 
selves,  the  result  may  be  a  startling  revelation  to  us. 
We  shall  probably  find  that  we  have  indulged  our¬ 
selves  in  certain  trains  of  thought  far  too 
frequently,  and  that  we  have  allowed  them  almost 
literally  to  cut  deep  channels  in  our  minds,  so  that 
it  has  become  very  difficult  to  control  our  imagina¬ 
tions,  and  to  observe  a  due  proportion  in  the 
amount  of  attention  which  we  pay  to  the  various 
interests  of  life.  Perhaps  most  serious  faults,  and 
most  disastrous  blunders  spring  from  disease  of  the 
imagination  caused  by  want  of  control  over  our 
leisure  thoughts. 

But  I  am  now  dealing  rather  with  the  effect  of 
attention  and  want  of  attention  upon  our  religious 
beliefs.  I  have  said  that  we  all  surround  our¬ 
selves  with  a  world  after  our  own  likeness.  Is  the 
world  which  we  have  made  for  ourselves  a  world 
in  which  there  is  room  for  God  and  an  eternal 
spiritual  world  ?  And  since  we  have  to  admit  that 
our  wishes  as  well  as  our  habitual  interests  affect 
our  beliefs,  are  we  so  living  that  the  Christian 
standard  of  values  would  be  welcome  to  us? 


W.  R.  INGE 


123 


Would  it  perhaps  demonetize  the  currency  in  which 
we  do  all  our  business,  and  a  good  supply  of  which 
we  have  tried  to  keep  in  store  ?  The  principle  that 
a  motive  for  belief  is  a  reason  for  doubt  is  a 
principle  which  must  be  vigorously  applied  to  our 
unbeliefs  as  well  as  to  our  beliefs.  Most  people 
when  they  reach  mature  years,  construct  for  them¬ 
selves  a  rough  scheme  of  values;  they  make  up 
their  minds  what  they  want,  how  they  mean  to 
get  it,  and  what  price  they  will  have  to  pay.  It  is 
most  inconvenient  to  have  this  scheme  upset.  It 
is  as  inconvenient  as  to  find  that  the  country  in 
which  we  have  invested  our  savings  has  gone 
bankrupt.  It  is,  therefore,  possible  and  only  too 
easy,  to  create  for  ourselves  strong  vested  interest 
in  that  kind  of  world  which  Christianity  tells  us 
not  to  love.  And  if  we  find  ourselves  confronted 
by  formidable  obstacles  in  the  way  of  faith,  we 
must  ask  ourselves  whether  perhaps  we  have  not 
put  them  there  ourselves.  And  if  our  hearts  acquit 
us  on  this  charge,  we  have  still  to  ask  ourselves 
whether,  supposing  that  there  is  a  God,  and  a 
Holy  Spirit  who  is  willing  to  be  the  Guest  of 
our  souls,  we  have  given  Him,  or  rather  ourselves, 
a  chance.  How  many  minutes,  on  an  average,  do 
we  give  in  the  day  to  thinking  about  Him?  Five 
minutes,  out  of  seventeen  hours  of  waking  life? 
If  this  is  so,  we  cannot  be  surprised  if  the  spiritual 
world  is  dim  and  faint  for  us.  The  loss  of  faith 
is  mainly  caused  by  the  neglect  of  private  prayer 


124 


WILLING  AND  KNOWING 


and  meditation.  Religion  is  crowded  out  by  other 
interests,  most  of  which  we  should  ourselves  admit 
to  the  frivolous.  We,  none  of  us,  really  think  that 
the  spiritual  world  is  moonshine;  but  we  are 
troubled  to  find  that  it  does  not  touch  our  experi¬ 
ence  much.  Have  we  any  right  to  be  surprised? 
Do  we  give  ourselves  a  fair  chance?  When  we 
remember  the  words  of  the  Psalmist,  “  I  have  set 
God  always  before  me,”  and  St.  Paul’s  admonition, 
“  Bringing  into  captivity  every  thought  to  the 
obedience  of  Christ,”  we  must  realize  how  unlike 
our  inner  life  is  to  that  of  God’s  saints.  I  am  not 
suggesting  that  we  should  load  the  dice  and  create 
for  ourselves  a  stake  in  ideal  values;  but  we  must 
admit  that  if  these  values  exist,  we  are  foolish  not 
to  take  far  more  trouble  to  realize  them  and  live 
by  them.  Frequent  acts  of  recollection;  short 
ejaculatory  prayer  before  beginning  my  task  or 
occupation;  a  few  minutes  of  meditation  on  our 
knees — this  is  not  much  to  give  to  that  which  alone 
makes  life  worth  living.  It  is  difficult  at  first,  no 
doubt,  so  is  the  exercise  of  any  faculty  which  we 
have  left  untrained.  But  if  we  have  not  made  the 
effort,  do  not  let  us  assume  either  that  man  cannot 
commune  with  his  Maker,  or  that  we  are  religiously 
ungifted,  destitute  of  the  faculty  which  in  its  fullest 
development  we  call  saintliness  or  religious  genius. 
There  are  great  differences  in  human  endowments, 
on  this  side  as  on  others,  and  there  is  no  reason  to 
think  that  God  looks  with  especial  favour  on  those 


W.  E.  INGE 


125 


who  are  devotional  by  temperament.  The  twelve 
apostles,  so  far  as  we  can  gather  from  what  we 
know  of  them,  were  brave  and  loyal  men,  but,  at 
any  rate  at  first,  rather  dull  listeners  to  their 
Master’s  highest  teachings.  Most  of  us  are  not 
called  to  be  saints,  any  more  than  we  are  called  to 
be  poets  or  musicians ;  but  we  have  the  capacity  for 
drawing  near  to  God  in  prayer  and  we  cannot  with 
impunity  allow  this  faculty  to  rust  unused. 

Religious  doubts,  it  seems  to  me,  fall  into  two 
classes.  Sometimes  they  gather  round  some  par¬ 
ticular  doctrine,  which  we  have  been  taught  to  re¬ 
gard  as  an  essential  part  of  the  Christian  faith.  It 
is  probable  that  this  doctrine  will  be  some  alleged 
event  in  the  past  or  future,  for  which  we  have 
come  to  think  that  the  evidence  is  untrustworthy  or 
insufficient.  I  do  not  think  that  we  have  any  right 
to  crush  or  inhibit  such  doubts.  Even  Pascal,  with 
all  his  distrust  of  human  reason,  says,  “  He  who 
doubts  and  searches  not  is  at  the  same  time  a 
grievous  wrong-doer  and  a  grievously  unfortunate 
man.”  The  last  words  remind  me  of  a  line  of 
Euripides,  which  applies  to  all  who  shirk  the  full 
human  experience,  that  of  domestic  life  for  ex¬ 
ample:  “  He  suffers  less,  but  we  cannot  envy  his 
good  fortune.”  I  believe  that  we  ought  to  pull 
these  skeletons  out  of  the  cupboard,  and  look  them 
squarely  in  the  face.  And  having  done  so,  the 
first  questions  which  we  ought  to  ask  are:  Is  this 
doctrine  really  part  of  Christianity  as  I  understand 


120 


WILLING  AND  KNOWING 


it?  If  it  is  true,  what  does  it  prove?  And  if  it 
is  not  true,  what  does  it  take  away  with  it?  Is 
there  any  part  of  my  vital  religion  which  stands  or 
falls  with  this  doctrine  ?  It  may  be  that  we  have 
listened  to  that  mischievous  type  of  apologists 
whose  favourite  weapon  is  the  dilemma.  If  you  do 
not  believe  this,  you  cannot  believe  that,  and  if 
you  do  not  believe  that  the  whole  of  Christianity 
goes  by  the  board.  We  must  not  attend  to  them. 
If  we  find  that  the  doctrine  which  seems  to  us  to  be 
insufficiently  attested  is  not  of  vital  importance  to 
us,  we  may  cease  to  trouble  ourselves  about  it. 
Sometimes  we  may  discover  later  that  it  is  better 
supported  than  we  thought;  more  often  perhaps  we 
may  conclude  that  it  is  a  bit  of  scaffolding  which 
the  fabric  no  longer  needs,  or  an  outwork  which 
is  no  longer  of  any  use  in  the  fortifications  of  the 
citadels.  The  late  Father  Tyrell  wrote  an  able 
book  called  Lex  Orandi,  in  which  he  discusses  what 
he  calls  the  “  prayer-value  ”  of  dogmas.  He  is 
perhaps  dangerously  near  saying  that  the  truth  of 
dogmas  consists  in  their  prayer-value,  which  is  the 
subjective  or  pragmatist  position  described  in  the 
opening  part  of  my  sermon  to-day;  but  I  think  it 
is  true  that  we  need  not  trouble  ourselves  much 
about  a  dogma  which  has  no  prayer  value  for  us. 
It  makes  all  the  difference  in  our  attitude  toward 
doubt  whether  we  regard  it  as  a  temptation  of  the 
devil,  or  as  part  of  the  discipline  which  we  are 
called  to  undergo.  Doubts  of  the  kind  which  we 


W.  R.  INGE 


127 


have  just  been  considering  are  not  temptations  of 
the  devil,  and  we  have  no  right  to  run  away  from 
them,  and  stifle  them  under  authority.  If  one 
authority  tells  us  to  believe,  and  another  authority 
tells  us  to  disbelieve,  and  we  follow  the  first 
authority  without  examining  the  evidence,  that  is 
tantamount  to  saying,  “  I  will  believe  because  I 
choose,”  which  is  not  an  attitude  for  an  intelligent 
or  even  an  honest  man. 

But  there  is  another  kind  of  doubt,  which  does 
not  attach  to  any  particular  doctrine,  but  to  the 
existence  of  God  Himself,  and  the  spiritual  world. 
It  is  not  so  much  that  any  anti-theistic  arguments 
seem  to  us  to  be  cogent,  as  that  the  whole  subject 
matter  of  religion  seems  to  us  to  be  unreal.  As  the 
French  encyclopaedist  said:  “The  question  of  God 
lacks  actuality.”  This  is  a  very  different  thing 
from  the  other  kind  of  doubt,  and  only  a  bigot  will 
confound  them.  In  dealing  with  this  second  type 
of  doubt,  it  is  a  pertinent  and  not  an  impertinent 
question  to  ask  whether  there  is  anything  in  the 
character  of  the  doubter  to  account  for  his  failure 
to  see  what  too  many  others  are  the  most  certain 
of  all  truths.  Theologians  have  often  misused  a 
perfectly  legitimate  argument  by  hinting  at  secret 
sins,  moral  obliquities  of  some  kind,  as  the  prob¬ 
able  source  of  want  of  faith.  It  is  certainly  true 
that  only  the  pure  in  heart  can  see  God,  and  we 
must  extend  the  meaning  of  purity  of  heart  to  all 
unfaithfulness  to  the  light  that  is  in  us.  The 


128 


WILLING  AND  KNOWING 


double  heart,  it  has  been  said,  makes  the  double 
head.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that 
irreligious  persons  are  evil  livers.  My  argument 
this  morning  has  been  that  inattention  and  want 
of  interest  are  quite  enough  to  account  for  the 
feeling  of  unreality  which  for  many  of  us  sur¬ 
rounds  the  spiritual  world,  and  that  however  real 
and  important  the  truths  of  religion  may  be,  we 
cannot  expect  to  feel  their  reality  and  importance 
if  we  hardly  ever  think  of  them. 

I  know  that  most  of  the  younger  generation  are 
disposed  to  think  that  there  is  something  small  and 
selfish  about  care  for  their  own  souls,  and  that  it 
is  enough  for  them  to  cherish,  on  the  one  side, 
what  a  recent  writer  has  called  loyalty  to  the  be¬ 
loved  community,  the  Church,  and  on  the  other, 
ardour  for  social  reform.  A  breezy,  familiar,  con¬ 
fident  religion,  with  this  dual  basis,  has  been 
brought  back  from  the  battle-field  of  France.  But 
believe  me,  you  can  serve  both  the  Church  and  the 
country  best  by  deepening  your  own  personal  faith. 
The  reason  why  organized  religion  has  lost  nearly 
all  its  credit,  is  not  that  it  is  not  sufficiently  organ¬ 
ized,  but  that  it  has  no  vision  of  the  invisible;  it 
does  not  hold  up  before  the  nation  that  standard  of 
values  which  Christ  revealed  to  us;  it  does  not 
believe  from  its  heart  with  that  noble  rebel 
Mazzini,  that  the  cause  of  all  our  trouble  is  the 
gradual  substitution  of  the  worship  of  material 
interests  for  the  adoration  of  holy  ideas;  and  so  it 


W.  R.  INGE 


129 


fluctuates  between  shallow  and  mischievous 
political  agitation  and  an  equally  shallow  and 
eclectic  medievalism.  You  will  do  far  more  good 
in  your  generation  by  being  devout  and  open- 
minded  Christians,  “  adding  to  your  faith  knowl¬ 
edge  ”  in  the  spirit  of  the  words  of  Clement  which 
I  quoted  to  you,  than  by  plunging  into  movements 
which  are  too  superficial  to  add  any  real  strength 
to  the  cause  of  religion.  If  we  are  to  have  a  re¬ 
ligious  revival,  it  must  be  unmistakably  a  spiritual 
revival — it  must  flow  from  an  outpouring  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  with  His  gifts  of  wisdom  and  under¬ 
standing  of  counsel  and  might,  of  knowledge  and 
the  fear  of  the  Lord ;  it  must  point  straight  to  the 
Cross  of  Christ,  and  to  heaven  into  which  He  is 
ascended.  Such  a  revival  can  begin  only  in  hearts 
which  have  prepared  themselves  earnestly  to  re¬ 
ceive  the  heavenly  Guest;  and  where  can  we  hope 
to  find  the  first  promise  of  it  if  not  here,1  the  home 
of  young  life  and  of  ancient  wisdom,  the  store¬ 
house  of  things  new  and  old — new  things  that 
were  old  before  the  world  was,  and  old  things 
which  spring  ever  fresh  from  the  fountains  of  the 
river  of  God?  If  any  man  willeth  to  do  His  will, 
he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine.  The  way  is  not  yet 
clear  before  us;  many  old  things  are  passing  away, 
and  we  do  not  know  what  is  coming.  It  is  a  time 
for  thought  and  prayer  and  self-discipline.  “  I  will 
hearken  what  the  Lord  God  will  say  concerning 

Oxford  University. 


130 


WILLING  AND  KNOWING 


me.”  Things  may  be  clearer  ten  years  hence,  when 
the  seed  sown  in  a  million  heroic  graves  has  had 
time  to  grow.  Meanwhile,  remember  St.  Paul’s 
words  to  Timothy,  “  Take  heed  to  thyself,  and  to 
the  doctrine  ” ;  and  to  thyself  first. 


IX 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  CHRIST 

By 

CHARLES  E.  JEFFERSON,  D.  D., 

Pastor ,  Broadway  ( Congregational )  Tabernacle , 

New  York 


Charles  Edward  Jefferson  was  born  at  Cambridge, 
Ohio,  August  29,  i860.  He  received  his  academic 
and  theological  training  at  Ohio  Wesleyan  and  Boston 
Universities.  He  was  ordained  in  the  Congregational 
ministry  in  1887.  He  was  pastor  of  Central  Church, 
Chelsea,  Mass.,  1887-1898.  In  1898  he  became  pastor 
of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  Congregational  Church, 
New  York,  where  he  is  still  located.  Dr.  Jefferson, 
during  the  spring  and  summer  of  1922,  acted  in  the 
capacity  of  Special  Preacher  to  the  City  Temple, 
London.  He  is  uniquely  a  preacher’s  preacher  and 
has,  through  his  written  and  spoken  work,  yielded 
an  amazing  influence  over  his  contemporaries  of  the 
pulpit. 

Among  his  many  written  works  must  be  men¬ 
tioned:  Under  Twenty ,  Old  Truths  and  New 
Facts,  The  Character  of  Jesus ,  Doctrine  and  Deed, 
The  Minister  as  Prophet,  Things  Fundamental,  The 
Ministering  Shepherd,  The  Building  of  the  Church. 


IX 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  CHRIST1 


“Now  if  any  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  he 
is  none  of  his.” — Romans  8 : 9. 

SO  said  the  first  great  interpreter  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  religion.  The  statement  is  straight¬ 
forward,  emphatic  and  beautifully  clear. 
Only  fifteen  words,  and  all  but  one  of  them  mono¬ 
syllables.  One  does  not  need  a  dictionary  to  read 
them.  A  child  of  six  can  take  them  in.  It  is  a 
sentence  without  mist  or  fog.  It  has  in  it  the  note 
of  finality.  It  is  positive,  dogmatic,  solid  as  an 
axiom.  It  is  in  the  style  of  Euclid.  Paul  is  not 
setting  forth  a  thesis  for  discussion.  There  are 
some  things  not  open  for  debate.  A  few  questions 
are  closed.  We  say  there  are  two  sides  to  every¬ 
thing,  but  there  are  not  two  sides  to  this.  You  can¬ 
not  say  that  if  a  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
it  makes  no  difference.  Everybody  sees  that  if  a 
man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  he  is  none  of  His. 
There  are  axioms  in  religion  as  in  mathematics. 
This  is  one  of  them.  Like  all  axioms,  this  one  is  a 
basal  truth,  and  therefore  a  truth  to  start  with.  In 
working  out  intricate  problems  we  must  begin  with 
fundamental  principles.  The  only  way  to  illumine 

1  Delivered  before  the  Copenhagen  Peace  Conference 
(1922).  Published  also  in  The  Christian  Work. 

133 


134  ^  THE  SPIRIT  OF  CHRIST 

\ 

a  confused  situation  is  to  flash  on  it  the  light  of  an 
elemental  truth.  Unless  we  begin  with  facts  which 
are  incontrovertible  we  cannot  prosper  in  our 
efforts  to  solve  the  problems  of  life.  To  begin 
with  forms  is  a  constant  temptation.  It  is  the 
surface  things  which  catch  the  eye  and  arrest  the 
mind.  It  is  easier  to  deal  with  measures  than  with 
truths,  to  frame  programs  than  to  mould  dis¬ 
positions,  to  devise  machinery  than  to  create  a  new 
heart.  Measures  and  programs  and  machinery  are 
indispensable.  Without  them  we  cannot  go  on. 
They  deserve  not  a  little  of  our  time  and  our 
thought.  But  our  machinery  and  schedules  and 
policies  are  all  the  time  disappointing  us,  because 
we  have  neglected  the  things  which  lie  deeper. 
W e  get  into  morasses  because  we  start  at  the  wrong 
point.  The  house  falls  because  we  do  not  go 
down  to  the  rock.  In  this  Cathedral,  dedicated  to 
God,  in  Whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being,  to  Jesus  Christ,  His  only  Son,  our  Lord,  and 
to  the  Holy  Ghost,  our  Advocate  and  Guide,  it  is 
fitting  that  before  we  enter  on  the  work  that  lies 
before  us  we  should  think  together  of  some  things 
which  are  fundamental  and  all  controlling. 

“  If  a  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  he  is 
none  of  his.”  Too  often  we  begin  and  end  with 
the  words  of  Jesus.  His  words  are  wonderful. 
They  lie  before  us  in  the  New  Testamenf.  They 
are  often  on  our  lips.  It  is  easy  to  repeat  them 
and  to  conjure  with  them.  Does  the  Church  pos- 


CHARLES  E.  JEFFERSON 


135 


sess  the  words  of  Jesus?  Yes.  Does  the  Church 
possess  the  Spirit  of  Christ?  That  is  an  embar¬ 
rassing  question.  But  if  the  Church  have  not  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  itris  none  of  His,  no  tnatter  how 
diligent  it  is  in  repeating  His  words.  “  Many  will 
say  to  me  Lord,  Lord.” 

Sometimes  we  do  not  begin  with  Christ  at  all; 
we  begin  with  the  Church,  its  forms  of  worship, 
its  sacraments,  its  orders,  its  government,  its 
creedal  statements,  its  traditions.  But  the  first 
great  Christian  preacher  did  not  begin  in  his  think¬ 
ing  with  the  Church ;  he  began  always  with  Christ. 
To  him  Christ  is  all.  If  we  have  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  we  have  everything.  If  we  have  not  His 
Spirit  we  have  nothing.  That  was  Paul’s  convic¬ 
tion.  See  what  this  means.  A  man  may  be  bap¬ 
tized  with  water,  but  if  he  is  not  baptized  into  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  he  is  none  of  His.  A  man  may 
come  to  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord’s  Supper  all 
through  his  life,  but  if  he  have  not  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  he  has  no  part  with  Him.  A  man  may  re¬ 
peat  the  most  orthodox  of  the  creeds,  but  if  he 
have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  he  is  not  a  believer. 
Paul  had  a  genius  for  seeing  through  shams.  He 
always  cut  to  the  core,  he  grasped  the  essence,  he 
made  his  way  into  the  marrow.  He  did  not  allow 
his  eye  to  wander  from  the  main  point.  He  saw 
that  if  a  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  he  is 
none  of  His.  ThisJs  not  a  dictum  to  be  Recited  or 
quibbled  over,  but  a  truth  to  be  pondered  over  and 


136  THE  SPIRIT  OF  CHRIST 

/ 

accepted  and  built  on.  Let  us  reckon  with  it  to¬ 
day. 

If  a  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  he  is 
none  of  his.”  Paul  liked  to  Say  this.  He  says 
it  now  in  one  way  and  now  in  another.  Like  all 
great  teachers,  he  varies  his  language  in  order  that 
the  trtfth  may  have  a  better  chance  to  capture  the 
mind.  To  the  Romans  he  says  it  in  prose.  To 
the  Corinthians  he  says  it  in  poetry.  To  the  man 
on  the  Tiber  he  is  as  curt  and  matter  of  fact  and 
peremptory  as  Pontius  Pilate  with  his  “  What  is 
written  is  written.”  To  the  Greeks  he  is  as 
picturesque  and  opulent  as  Plato.  “  Though  I 
speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels  and 
have  not  love- — in  other  words,  if  I  have  not  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  I  am  nothing  but  noise  ” — I  am 
not  creating  music  that  can  be  caught  up  and  woven 
into  the  everlasting  harmonies.  The  Corinthians, 
like  certain  moderns,  put  primary  emphasis  upon 
rhetoric  and  knowledge.  Paul  asserts,  “  Though 
I  know  all  the  mysteries  and  all  knowledge  and 
have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  I  am  nothing.” 
There  were  some  in  Corinth,  as  there  are  some 
now,  who  talked  much  about  faith.  They  had 
caught  up  the  word  of  Jesus  and  were  making  a 
fetish  of  it.  Paul  declares,  “  Though  I  have  all 
faith,  so  that  I  could  remove  mountains,  and  have 
not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  I  am  nothing.”  There 
were  Corinthians  who  made  good  works  the  be-all 
and  end-all  of  religion,  and  their  descendants  have 


CHABLES  E.  JEFFEESON  137 

i 

gone  abroad  through  all  the  earth.  Their  religion 
consisted  in  feeding  poor  people.  Paul  proclaims, 
“  Though  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed  the  poor 
and  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  it  profits  me 
nothing.”  Philanthropy  is  not  religiori.  It  is 
possible  to  scatter  large  benefactions  and  have  a 
heart  at  enmity  with  God.  Even  martyrdom  does 
not  always  possess  ethical  value.  Men  can  become 
martyrs  through  superstition  or  fanaticism,  or 
through  sheer  stubbornness,  and  Paul  lays  it  down, 
“  Though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned  and  have 
not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  it  does  not  help  me  at  all.” 

Here  is  a  truth  which  the  Apostle  is  determined 
to  drive  home.  Everything,  so  he  thinks,  depends 
on  this  being  understood.  The  future  of  the 
Church  and  of  religion  and  of  civilization  itself  all 
hangs  on  this.  If  men  fail  to  see  that  being  a 
Christian  means  possessing  the  Spirit  of  Christ, 
then  all  the  future  course  of  the  world’s  life  will 
be  bound  in  shallows  and  miseries. 

What  is  the  Spirit  of  Christ?  Fortunately  we 
are  not  left  in  the  dark.  There  is  much  twilight 
in  the  New  Testament,  but  not  at  this  point. 
Many  things  which  we  want  to  know  about  Jesus 
the  New  Testament  refuses  to  disclose.  One  thing 
it  makes  gloriously  luminous — the  Spirit  of  Christ. 
His  soul  stands  out  before  us  radiant,  full-statured, 
clear-cut  as  a  star.  We  are  uncertain  sometimes 
as  to  His  words ;  we  are  never  in  doubt  concerning 
the  sort  of  man  He  was.  We  are  always  absolutely 


138 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  CHRIST 


sure  of  His  attitude,  His  disposition,  His  spirit. 
First  of  all.  He  was  brotherly.  His  spirit  was 
wafmly  fraternal.  His  heart  was  big  and  friendly. 
He  was  a  brother  to  everybody.  The  crowd  at 
once  saw  that.  His  brotherliness  was  amazing, 
unprecedented,  even  scandalous.  He  carried  it  too 
far,  so  thought  the  Scribes.  He  shocked  the 
prudent  by  being  too  brotherly.  He  was  the  friend 
of  publicans  and  sinners.  That  was  the  first  in¬ 
dictment  brought  in  against  Him.  To  Jesus 
brotherliness  is  of  the  essence  of  true  religion. 
Fellowship  is  cardinal  and  indispensable.  In  re¬ 
ligion  worship  does  not  come  first;  brotherliness 
comes  first.  It  is  far  easier  to  worship  than  to  be 
brotherly.  “  If  thou  bring  thy  gift  to  the  altai 
and  there  rememberest  that  thy  brother  hath  ought 
against  thee,  leave  there  thy  gift  before  the  altar 
and  go  thy  way- — first  be  reconciled  to  thy  brother 
and  then  come  and  offer  thy  gift.”  This  is  what 
He  was  always  saying.  His  disciples  could  never 
forget  it.  One  of  them,  when  he  was  an  old  man, 
wrote:  “  He  that  loveth  not  his  brother,  whom  he 
hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not 
seen?”  Brotherliness  expresses  itself  in  inter¬ 
course,  communion,  cooperation.  The  Christian 
who  is  zealous  in  worship  and  indifferent  to  fellow¬ 
ship  does  not  know  the  A  B  C  of  Christianity. 
What  foolery  to  make  a  great  to-do  about  forms 
of  worship  and  crucify  the  spirit  of  brotherliness! 
Church  bigots  and  snobs,  ecclesiastical  autocrats 


CHARLES  E.  JEFFERSON 


139 


and  churls  have  no  part  with  Christ.  Paul  is  right 
— “  If  a  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  he  is 
none  of  his.”  Brotherliness  is  the  first  note  of  a 
genuinely  Christian  Church. 

Brotherliness  leads  to  service.  Christ  was  a 
servant  No  one  questions  that.  He  so  glorified 
the  word  servant  that  His  disciples  could  think  of 
no  higher  title  for  themselves  than  “  servants.” 
“  He  went  about  doing  good.”  That  was  Peter’s 
description  of  Jesus’  life  when  he  held  Jesus  up  be-L 
fore  the  Romans  in  the  house  of  Cornelius  in 
Caesarea.  Jesus  loved  to  think  of  Himself  as  a 
servant.  “  The  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  min¬ 
istered  unto,  but  to  minister.”  “  If  any  man  will 
be  great,  let  him  become  the  servant  of  all.”  The 
man  who  rises  highest  is  the  man  who  serves  most. 
At  the  end  of  His  life  Jesus,  standing  with  a  basin 
of  water  in  one  hand  and  a  towel  in  the  other, 
said:  “  I  have  given  you  an  example.”  The  dis¬ 
ciple  who  wrote  the  fourth  Gospel  has  nothing  to 
say  about  the  Sacrament  of  the  Bread  and  Wine ; 
he  fixes  attention  upon  the  Sacrament  of  the  Basin 
and  Towel.  The  Spirit  of  Christ  is,  then,  the 
Spirit  of  service.  A  Christian  man  is  always  help¬ 
ful.  If  he  have  not  this  spirit  of  helpfulness  he 
does  not  belong  to  Christ.  If  a  church  is  not  a 
servant  of  the  town,  of  the  world,  it  is  none  of 
His.  What  matters  it  what  you  label  it? 

Brotherly  service  finds  its  climax  in  sacrifice. 
The  Spirit  of  Jesus  is  the  spirit  of  sacrifice.  Does 


140 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  CHRIST 


any  one  doubt  it?  The  fundamental  principle  of 
Christianity  is  self-denial.  When  Paul  urges  men 
to  have  the  mind  that  was  in  Christ  he  portrays  the 
self-surrender  of  the  man  Jesus,  obedient  unto 
death,  even  the  death  of  the  Cross.  Jesus  was 
always  laying  down  His  life  for  others.  “  If  any 
man  will  come  after  me,  let  him  take  up  his  Cross 
every  day.”  The  Church  is  right  in  making  the 
Cross  the  symbol  of  the  Christian  faith. 

Here,  then,  we  stand  in  the  presence  of  the  Soul 
of  Jesus.  He  is  brotherly,  helpful,  self-denying. 
His  Spirit  is  the  spirit  of  fraternity,  service  and 
loving  sacrifice.  If  a  man  have  not  this  same 
spirit  he  is  none  of  His.  If  a  church  is  not  bap¬ 
tized  into  this  same  spirit  it  does  not  belong  to  Him. 
If  you  roll  brotherliness,  service  and  sacrifice  into 
one  word,  you  have  love.  The  Spirit  of  Jesus  is 
the  spirit  of  love.  “  God  is  Love,”  and  Jesus  is 
the  express  image  of  His  Father,  and  is  therefore 
Love.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  the  Spirit  of  the  Father 
and  also  of  the  Son,  and  therefore  the  Holy  Spirit 
is  the  Spirit  of  Love.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  the 
sway  of  love.  If  the  world  is  full  of  suspicion, 
and  fear,  and  ill-will,  the  Kingdom  of  God  has  not 
come.  If  the  Church  abound  in  unbrotherliness 
and  selfishness  and  dissension,  the  Kingdom  of 
God  has  not  come.  All  Christians  are  expected  to 
pray  constantly  that  the  sway  of  love  may  come. 
It  must  come,  first  of  all,  to  those  who  offer  the 
prayer.  The  sway  of  love  must  be  first  in  the 


CHARLES  E.  JEFFERSON 


141 


Church.  If  it  is  not  there,  it  is  not  likely  to  be  any¬ 
where.  It  cannot  be  there  until  Christians  repent 
and  are  born  from  above.  Christ  is  inexorable  on 
this  point.  “  A  new  commandment  I  give  unto 
you  that  ye  love  one  another  as  I  have  loved  you.” 
Men  are  always  willing  to  love  up  to  a  certain 
point,  and  after  a  conventional  standard.  We  be¬ 
come  real  Christians  only  in  loving  our  fellow 
Christians  as  Christ  has  loved  us.  This  is  His 
type  of  love  which  will  save  the  Church  and  the 
world.  No  lower  grade  of  love  will  meet  the  situ¬ 
ation.  The  Publicans’  style  or  the  Gentiles’  type 
are  not  sufficient.  There  must  be  the  generous  for¬ 
giving,  overflowing,  reckless  love  of  Christ.  We 
must  forgive  our  enemies  and  do  good  to  them 
that  despitefully  use  us.  It  is  this  Christlike  type 
of  love  in  Christian  men  which  is  to  convince  the 
world  that  Jesus  Christ  is  from  heaven.  Such  love 
is  the  only  badge  of  discipleship,  the  only  satis¬ 
factory  proof  of  loyalty.  It  is  the  only  orthodoxy 
recognized  in  heaven.  “  By  this  shall  all  men 
know  that  ye  are  my  disciples  if  ye  have  love  one^ 
for  another.”  A  loveless  Church  is  not  a  Christian 
Church.  A  Church  which  does  not  serve  human¬ 
ity  does  not  belong  to  Christ.  A  divided  Church 
is  a  stumbling  block  and  scandal.  A  Church  made 
up  of  groups  of  men  who  are  unbrotherly,  and  who 
hold  aloof  from  mutual  service,  and  who  refuse  to 
cooperate  in  loving  sacrifice  for  the  attainment  of 
common  ends  is  a  Church  which  is  a  disappoint- 


142 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  CHRIST 


ment  to  the  heart  of  Christ.  The  nations  will  never 
be  won  by  the  observance  of  sacraments.  The 
world  can  only  be  won  by  the  massed  cohorts  of 
Christians  who  love  one  another  as  Christ  has  loved 
them.  If  the  Church  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
it  is  none  of  His.  Until  that  axiomatic  truth  is 
faced  and  accepted  and  incarnated  we  must  remain 
outside  the  city  whose  gates  are  pearl. 

“  If  a  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  he  is 
none  of  his.”  Let  us  put  a  fresh  emphasis  on 
that.  If  he  does  not  have  the  mind  of  Christ  he 
is  contributing  nothing  to  that  public  opinion  which 
will  some  day  control  the  world.  If  he  does  not 
have  the  heart  of  Christ  he  does  not  count  in  the 
sum  total  of  redemptive  forces. 

If  the  Church  has  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  it  is 
none  of  His.  Let  us  stress  that.  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  walked  boldly  across  national,  racial  and 
social  lines,  and  He  said,  “  Follow  Me.”  Let  us 
follow  Him.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  Church  to  walk 
unafraid  across  national  frontiers.  It  is  ordained 
to  carry  across  national  boundaries  considerateness 
and  helpfulness  and  forgiveness  and  sacrifice.  It 
should  do  this  audaciously.  Men  must  learn  to 
clasp  hands  across  racial  chasms.  The  Church 
must  train  them  to  do  it.  Men’s  hearts  must  touch 
one  another  through  the  barriers  of  nationality  and 
race  and  tradition  and  prejudice.  The  inter¬ 
twining  of  human  sympathies  and  affections,  to 
this  mighty  work  the  Church  is  called.  If  the 


CHAELES  E.  JEFFEESON 


143 


Church  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  it  is  none  of 
His. 

If  a  nation  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  it  is 
none  of  His.  Let  us  say  that  with  authority,  and 
let  us  say  it  often.  Diplomacy  must  be  baptized 
into  the  Spirit  of  Christ.  This  must  be  insisted 
on.  The  diplomat  must  obey  the  law  of  Christ. 
He  must  be  brotherly.  His  ambition  must  be  to 
help,  and  he  must  do  his  work  within  sight  of  the 
principle  of  sacrifice.  The  mailed  fist  must  go — 
only  the  pierced  hands  can  lift  the  world  to  new 
levels.  Love  is  the  mightiest  force  in  the  universe. 
Let  us  believe  it  and  act  upon  it.  Scientists  are 
not  ashamed  of  the  law  of  gravitation.  It  is  in¬ 
exorable,  unchangeable,  and  those  who  ignore  it 
perish.  Let  us  not  apologize  for  the  law  of  love. 
It  also  is  unalterable,  inflexible,  and  those  who 
violate  it  are  ground  to  powder.  The  world  is  in 
its  present  deplorable  condition  solely  because  of 
the  long  continued  and  outrageous  trampling  upon 
the  law  of  love. 

If  a  government  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  it 
is  none  of  His.  If  it  lack  His  Spirit  it  is  doomed. 
Its  wealth  will  not  save  it,  nor  its  learning,  nor  its 
genius,  nor  its  military  power.  If  a  nation  have 
not  the  Spirit  of  Christ  it  must  go  down.  Let  us 
press  this  upon  the  mind  and  conscience  of  the 
world.  Let  us  put  it  in  the  forefront  of  all  our 
teaching.  God  has  made  of  one  flesh  every  nation 
of  men  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the  earth,  having 


144 


THE  SPIKIT  OF  CHRIST 


determined  their  appointed  seasons  and  the  bounds 
of  their  habitations.  Corporate  life  is  ordained  of 
God,  and  ruled  by  Him.  National  development  is 
held  in  the  grip  of  unchanging  and  irresistible  law. 
God  is  love,  and  rulers  and  statesmen  lead  nations 
to  the  abyss  if  they  refuse  to  obey  the  law  of  love. 
Nations,  like  individuals,  live  and  move  and  have 
their  being  in  God  (i.  e.,  in  love).  No  nation  lives 
to  itself.  Every  nation  is  vitally  related  to  every 
other  nation,  and  all  nations  are  bound  up  in 'the 
life  of  the  Lord  of  Love.  A  nation  which  refuses 
to  do  justly  and  love  mercy  and  walk  humbly  with 
its  neighbours  in  the  path  of  brotherly  sendee  and 
good  will  is  sooner  or  later  dashed  to  pieces  like  a 
potter’s  vessel.  Those  who  doubt  this  should  read 
history. 

It  is  in  the  international  realm  that  the  Church 
must,  through  the  coming  centuries,  perform  its 
most  zealous  and  arduous  labour.  The  world  is 
sick  and  the  Church  must  heal  it.  The  world  is 
torn  by  evil  spirits,  suspicion  and  fear,  and  greed, 
and  injustice,  and  hate,  and  revenge,  and  all  these 
must  be  cast  out.  The  fhurch  is  commissioned  to 
cast  out  demons.  War  is  a  demon.  War  must 
go.  We  must  have  a  warless  world  if  we  are  to 
have  any  world  at  all.  Let  us  demand  in  the  name 
of  Christ  that  preparations  for  war  throughout 
shall  cease.  Preparing  for  war  leads  to  war.  We 
can  never  have  peace  so  long  as  nations  prepare  for 
war.  Let  us  insist  that  target  practice  shall  come 


CHAELES  E.  JEFFEESON 


145 


to  an  end.  Let  us  denounce  it  as  blasphemy 
against  God,  a  conscienceless  trampling  on  our 
word  to  the  young  men  who  went  out  to  die  in 
the  Great  War,  heartened  by  our  promise  that  that 
would  be  the  last  war.  Let  us  cry  out  unitedly 
against  the  building  of  battle-ships,  those  breeders 
of  fear,  and  against  the  construction  of  bomb¬ 
dropping  airplanes,  those  fomenters  of  hate,  and 
against  the  creation  of  all  those  instruments  of 
death  whose  very  existence  arouses  suspicion  and 
poisons  the  springs  of  international  good  will. 

God  calls  all  men  to  repent.  To  repent  is  not  to 
cry  or  to  feel  bad.  We  have  cried  enough.  To 
repent  is  to  change  one’s  mind.  God  commands  us 
to  change  our  ways  of  thinking.  We  think  like 
men,  and  the  world  can  never  become  better  or 
happier  until  we  think  like  God.  We  think  like 
God  only  when  we  think  like  Christ.  When  we 
think  like  Christ  we  think  in  terms  of  justice  and 
mercy,  of  tenderness  and  forgiveness  and  good  will. 
When  we  think  like  Christ  we  believe  in  men. 
We  trust  them,  we  suffer  long  and  still  are  kind. 
We  are  patient  with  them,  and  we  forgive  them 
when  they  do  us  wrong.  We  claim  them  as  our 
brothers. 

To  bring  the  separated  races  together  and  to 
train  alienated  nations  to  love  one  another — this  is 
"our  heavenly  Father’s  business  and  we  must  be 
about  it.  There  are  many  obstacles.  We  must 
travel  the  way  of  the  Cross.  The  adversaries  are 


146 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  CHRIST 


not  few.  We  must  go  by  way  of  Golgotha.  The 
discouragements  and  disappointments  and  defeats 
and  delays  make  the  heart  sick — this  is  the  cup 
which  our  Father  has  given  us  to  drink.  Shall  we 
not  drink  it?  If  God  is  for  us,  who  is  against  us? 
“  He  that  spared  not  his  own  Son,  but  delivered 
him  up  for  us  all,  how  shall  he  not  also  with  him 
freely  give  us  all  things.”  “  If  ye  being  evil  know 
how  to  give  good  gifts  unto  your  children,  how 
much  more  shall  your  Father  who  is  in  heaven  give 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  him.” 

Let  us  open  our  Conference  with  a  great  wish, 
a  mighty  longing,  a  passionate  prayer  that  the 
Spirit  of  Love  may  come  upon  us  and  direct  us  in 
all  our  ways.  Then  shall  we  have  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  and  the  Conference  will  be  His. 


X 

THE  CROSS— THE  MEASURE 
OF  THE  WORLD 

By 

JOHN  KELMAN,  D.  D., 

Fast  or,  Fifth  Avenue  Presbyterian  Church , 

New  York 


John  Kelman  was  born  June  20,  1862,  in  Ayrshire, 
Scotland.  He  received  his  academic  training  at  New 
College,  Edinburgh  and  Ormond  College,  Melbourne ; 
ordained  as  a  Presbyterian  clergyman  1891 ;  assistant 
to  Rev.  (now  Principal)  George  Adam  Smith, 
D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  in  Aberdeen ;  minister  of  Peterculter, 
Aberdeenshire,  1891 ;  of  New  North  Church,  Edin¬ 
burgh,  1897-1907;  of  St.  George’s  United  Free 
Church,  Edinburgh,  1907-1919;  now  minister  of 
Fifth  Avenue  Presbyterian  Church,  New  York  City. 
Dr.  Kelman  is  a  ripe  scholar,  an  illuminating  author 
and  a  master  of  pulpit  technique. 

Outstanding  among  his  publications  are ;  The  Faith 
of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson ,  The  Holy  Land ,  A  Study 
of  John  Runyan’ s  Pilgrim’s  Progress,  Ephemera 
Eternitatis ,  Among  Famous  Books,  The  Light  That 
Saves,  and  The  Foundations  of  Faith. 


X 


THE  CROSS— THE  MEASURE  OF 
THE  WORLD 

“  He  that  talketh  with  me  has  a  golden  reed  to 
measure  the  city,  and  the  gates  thereof,  and  the  wall 
thereof  — Revelation  21 :  15. 

"  We  preach  Christ  crucified,  unto  the  Jews  a 
stumbling-block,  and  unto  the  Greeks  foolishness ; 
but  unto  them  which  are  called,  both  Jews  and 
Greeks,  Christ  the  power  of  God,  and  the  wisdom  of 
God  — 1  Corinthians  i  :  23,  24. 

I 

THERE  is  a  fine  phrase  of  Newman’s  in 
which  he  speaks  of  the  cross  as  the 
measure  of  the  world.  There  is  no  one 
text  of  Scripture  which  gives  these  words  exactly, 
but  if  we  combine  the  two  texts  which  have  been 
chosen  for  to-day  we  shall  get  something  very 
near  it.  It  is  a  phrase  very  rich  and  full  of 
spiritual  suggestion.  It  shows  us  on  the  one  hand 
one  of  the  deepest  of  the  world’s  needs,  and  on  the 
other  hand  the  remedy  for  that  defect.  The  need 
of  the  world  is  for  a  true  standard  whereby  it  may 
judge  itself  and  its  beliefs.  Many  hard  things 
have  been  said  about  the  world,  in  condemnation 
both  of  its  wisdom  and  of  its  morality,  but  this  is 

the  most  fundamental  of  them  all.  If  it  be  true 

149 


150  THE  CROSS  THE  MEASURE  OF  WORLD 


that  the  world  habitually  deludes  itself  because  of 
the  false  standards  by  which  it  judges,  then  the  case 
is  indeed  serious.  In  Second  Corinthians  St.  Paul 
speaks  of  some  who  measure  themselves  by  them¬ 
selves  and  compare  themselves  among  themselves, 
and  by  doing  this  prove  that  they  are  not  wise. 
Theirs  was  the  same  folly  which  Pope  rebukes  in 
his  famous  line,  Still  make  themselves  the  meas¬ 
ure  of  mankind.  This  is  a  very  far-reaching  ac¬ 
cusation.  It  does  not  mean  merely  that  the  world 
is  mistaken  in  its  judgments,  and  accuse  it  of 
falsity  or  foolishness  in  this  or  that  estimate.  It 
goes  much  further  than  that  and  tells  us  that  the 
world  cannot  but  be  mistaken  in  its  judgment,  be¬ 
cause  it  has  lost  its  sense  of  values  and  proportions 
altogether.  Its  greatest  need  is  not  for  a  correct 
view  of  this  or  that,  but  for  a  new  standard  by 
which  to  judge  all  things. 

Here  then  the  new  standard  is  offered  to  the 
world.  It  is  the  cross  of  Calvary.  Of  the  many 
points  of  view  from  which  men  have  seen  the  cross 
none  could  possibly  be  more  interesting  and  none 
more  vital  than  this.  It  has  been  given  to  man 
as  a  measuring-rod,  an  absolute  standard  of  value 
to  which  he  may  bring  all  the  aspects  and  details 
of  his  manifold  life,  and  determine  the  worth  of 
each,  not  for  time  but  for  eternity.  This  is  an 
idea  which  has  been  often  and  beautifully  ex¬ 
pressed.  Readers  of  Cynewulf’s  great  poem  of 
Christ  will  remember  how  on  Judgment  Day  the 


JOHN  KELMAN 


151 


cross  dominates  the  whole  scene  with  its  mingled 
streams  of  fire  and  blood.  Equally  dominant  is 
the  cross  in  Dante’s  Paradiso  in  which  everything 
is  subordinate  to  its  supreme  decision.  The  idea  of 
the  cross  as  standard  has  become  domesticated  in 
our  Gothic  architecture.  All  over  Christian  lands 
our  fathers  erected  cruciform  churches  and  ca¬ 
thedrals,  symbolizing  the  dying  Saviour  point  by 
point.  In  many  of  these  the  leaning  chancel  has 
indicated  the  head  of  the  Crucified,  and  the  altar- 
rail  has  been  familiarly  spoken  of  as  the  breast  of 
God,  while  the  transepts  are  the  outstretched  arms. 
These  churches  were  the  Christian  attempt  to  re¬ 
measure  the  world  with  the  measure  of  Christ,  the 
Crucified,  and  so  correct  the  mistaken  judgments  of 
things  that  men  were  everywhere  making. 

If  we  may  pursue  the  figure  a  little  further  we 
can  well  see  how  in  the  day  of  Calvary  the  cross 
of  Jesus  was  measuring  the  city  of  Jerusalem. 
Then  was  fulfilled  the  prophecy  of  Zechariah  who 
lifted  up  his  eyes  and  looked,  and  beheld  a  man 
with  a  measuring-line  in  his  hand.  Then  said  I, 
Whither  goest  thou?  And  he  said  unto  me,  To 
measure  Jerusalem,  to  see  what  is  the  breadth 
thereof,  and  what  is  the  length  thereof.  Undoubt¬ 
edly  in  Christ’s  time  Jerusalem  was  needing  a  new 
standard  of  measurement.  Its  history  had  intoxi¬ 
cated  it.  It  had  taken  itself  so  seriously  that  it 
seemed  to  be  the  greatest  city,  nay  the  only  city 
worth  mentioning,  in  all  the  world.  After  so  long 


152  THE  CROSS  THE  MEASURE  OF  WORLD 


a  lapse  of  time  the  airs  which  Jerusalem  gave  her¬ 
self  would  be  amusing  if  they  were  not  so  pathetic. 
She  complacently  asked  whether  any  good  thing 
could  come  out  of  Nazareth,  and  evidently  was  per¬ 
suaded  that  there  was  nothing  which  counted  for 
anything,  and  no  one  who  counted  for  anybody 
outside  of  Jerusalem. 

How  sarcastically  history  has  dealt  with  that 
judgment.  The  city  shrank  long  ago  to  a  provin¬ 
cial  town  famous  chiefly  for  a  crime.  A  score  of 
times  besieged,  its  character  seemed  to  grow  worse 
rather  than  to  improve  under  calamity.  They  used 
to  ask  whether  any  good  thing  could  come  out  of 
Nazareth,  but  the  question  seemed  to  retort  upon 
them,  asking  whether  any  good  thing  could  come 
out  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  answer  was  that  it  was 
very  doubtful  whether  any  good  thing  could  come 
out  of  Jerusalem — alive.  Even  in  temporal  mat¬ 
ters  the  cross  measured  Jerusalem.  It  was  the 
token  of  the  city’s  subjection  under  the  power  of 
Rome.  It  measured  its  religion,  showing  how 
narrow  were  its  projects  and  how  unreasoning  its 
hatreds.  It  branded  it  with  the  perpetual  accusa¬ 
tion  that  with  all  its  boasted  austerity  of  righteous¬ 
ness  Jerusalem  was  a  place  where  men  could  still 
be  crucified  to  save  a  situation.  Thus  Jesus  from 
the  cross  judged  His  judges,  Roman  and  Jewish 
alike.  When,  near  the  end,  He  cried,  It  is  finished, 
the  words  were  His  verdict  upon  a  great  deal  that 
had  been  characteristic  of  the  ancient  world.  Much 


JOHN  KELMAN 


153 


that  seemed  important,  much  that  had  been  taken 
for  granted,  much  that  was  universal  and  had  been 
esteemed  excellent,  was  indeed  finished  upon  that 
day.  The  ways  and  standards  which  had  satisfied 
the  earlier  conscience  would  satisfy  man  no  more. 
Old  things  were  passed  away  and  many  of  them 
thrown  upon  the  rubbish-heap  forever.  The  old 
Jerusalem  had  outlived  her  day.  A  new  world, 
managed  upon  different  principles  and  measured  by 
different  standards,  began  at  the  cross.  The  tri¬ 
umph  of  these  principles  and  standards  would  be  a 
new  Jerusalem  descending  from  God  out  of  heaven 
to  take  the  place  of  the  old. 

It  is  perhaps  fanciful,  and  yet  the  fancy  is  quite 
irresistible  and  there  is  much  truth  in  it,  to  see  in 
the  cross  a  rod  that  measures  human  life  in  four 
directions — east  and  west  and  down  and  up.  It 
measured  the  East  and  all  that  Oriental  life  had 
stood  for.  Especially  did  it  take  the  measure  of 
Judea  and  Palestine.  The  Holy  Land  in  its  super¬ 
cilious  fashion  imagined  that  it  had  taken  the  meas¬ 
ure  of  the  cross.  Paul  tells  us  that  it  had  called  it 
a  stumbling-block  and  passed  on  its  way  regardless. 
For  the  pious  Jew  this  symbol  was  simply  a  gallows 
on  which  a  blasphemer  had  been  punished  by  the 
hands  of  his  appointed  judges.  How  little  could 
he  imagine  that  this  execution  was  really  taking 
the  measure  of  him  and  of  his  nation  and  sending 
it  down  to  all  future  time.  It  was  not  long  till  the 
apostles  of  the  new  creed  were  proclaiming  that 


154  THE  CROSS  THE  MEASURE  OF  WORLD 


Palestine  was  a  nation  which  had  crucified  its 
Messiah,  and  the  cross  was  already  branding  them 
in  history  as  the  murderers  of  the  Holy  One  of 
God.  In  countless  touches  we  see  the  judgment  of 
the  cross  upon  those  who  were  responsible  for  it. 
As  they  passed  by  while  Christ  was  dying,  they 
called  up  to  Him  in  mockery,  Come  down  from  the 
cross  and  we  will  believe.  He  saved  others,  Him¬ 
self  He  cannot  save.  Nothing  could  have  been 
more  revealing  than  that.  It  measured  their  esti¬ 
mate  of  what  God  and  the  Son  of  God  must  be. 
The  Crucified  would  have  seemed  divine  to  them 
if  He  had  saved  Himself.  But  the  cross  has  taught 
the  world  that  He  Who  saves  Himself  cannot  save 
others,  and  the  world  has  believed  in  Christ  pre¬ 
cisely  because  He  did  not  come  down  from  the 
cross. 

Not  less  accurately  and  sweepingly  did  the  cross 
take  the  measure  of  the  Western  world  that  day. 
The  West  was  dominated  by  the  Greek  spirit  which 
counted  the  cross  foolishness.  Their  measure  of  it 
was  contemptuous  in  the  last  degree,  and  it  would 
have  seemed  sheer  folly  to  offer  it  to  them  in  their 
culture.  Cicero  had  said,  Let  the  very  name  of 
the  cross  be  far  away  from  Roman  citizens,  not 
from  their  bodies  only — but  from  their  thoughts, 
their  eyes  and  their  ears.  The  weakness  of  the 
Greek  world  was  that  it  refused  to  face  the  facts 
of  life.  Nature  was  crucifying  Greece  in  national 
disaster  and  in  the  sad  and  insoluble  mystery  of 


JOHN  KELMAN 


155 


death,  to  say  nothing  of  all  the  individual  pain  and 
wretchedness  with  which  life  itself  was  beset.  The 
Greek  was  perplexed,  and  there  hung  about  all  his 
fair  dreams  that  melancholy  with  which  we  are 
familiar.  The  cross  might  indeed  be  foolishness  to 
the  Greek,  but  in  the  deep  heart  of  him  he  knew 
it  was  fact  also,  and  he  had  no  explanation  for  the 
mystery.  The  cross  of  Calvary  has  measured  and 
explained  the  tragedy  which  perplexed  and  sad¬ 
dened  the  Grseco-Roman  world  and  which  are  still 
so  insistent  in  the  heart  of  man.  It  revealed  a  sor¬ 
row  that  was  not  unavailing,  a  sacrifice  that  could 
redeem,  and  thus  it  answered  the  questions  which 
classical  culture  could  not  answer,  and  took  the 
measure  of  that  culture’s  highest  wisdom. 

Behold  how  far  also  the  east  is  from  the  west! 
How  very  far  is  Athens  from  Jerusalem!  Yet  He 
Who  was  crucified  on  Calvary  stretched  out  His 
hands  toward  both  of  these.  He  revealed  and  put 
on  record  the  inevitable  failure  of  their  life  and 
showed  that  He  alone  could  rectify  it.  As  He 
hung  there  in  mute  agony  He  was  interpreting  the 
deepest  meaning  both  of  Eastern  and  of  Western 
thought.  Beyond  the  bounds  of  the  Grseco-Latin 
world  on  the  one  side  and  the  Semitic  on  the  other, 
the  cross  was  the  measure  of  still  further  lands. 
All  other  faiths  with  their  acceptances  and  rejec¬ 
tions  must  sooner  or  later  come  to  this  measuring- 
place  and  have  their  values  tested  by  the  cross  of 
Calvary.  The  faith  of  which  that  cross  is  the 


156  THE  CROSS  THE  MEASURE  OF  WORLD 


symbol  is  not  a  new  faith  better  than  others  that 
had  already  existed  or  were  yet  to  be  born.  It  is 
the  very  essence  of  all  true  religion,  the  thing 
which  every  faith  of  man  is  seeking  and  more  or 
less  vainly  trying  to  express. 

Further;  the  cross  is  the  measure  not  only  of 
man’s  religion  but  of  all  departments  of  his  life 
and  thought.  It  tears  off  all  our  wrappings  of 
local  prejudice  and  brings  us  down  in  every  region 
to  the  dire  facts  of  human  life.  It  measures  our 
politics  and  all  our  national  ideals.  These  have 
been  too  often  measured  by  such  poor  conceptions 
as  the  balance  of  power  and  the  most  convenient 
compromise  which  will  tide  a  nation  over  the  im¬ 
mediate  future.  But  the  cross  strikes  home  to  the 
principles  upon  which  politicians  are  working.  It 
knows  nothing  of  questions  of  expediency,  but  re¬ 
veals  these  principles  as  essentially  Christian  or 
anti-Christian,  good  or  bad.  Similarly,  it  meas¬ 
ures  our  wealth  and  poverty,  and  the  causes  which 
produce  them.  Social  prejudice  and  the  habit  of 
laissez  faire  have  pronounced  their  own  judgment 
upon  this  distribution  and  found  that  it  was  all  very 
satisfactory.  That  is  not  the  judgment  of  the 
cross.  The  cross  demands  a  justice  founded  upon 
equity  rather  than  upon  the  mere  letter  of  the  law. 
It  insists  upon  humanity  instead  of  legality  as  the 
master  of  the  social  conscience. 

Similarly,  the  cross  measures  the  art  of  any  age, 
not  by  the  fashion  of  critics  and  the  popular  fancy 


JOHN  KELMAN 


157 


of  the  time,  but  by  its  relation  to  truth  and  loftiness 
and  purity,  in  virtue  of  which  art  is  the  handmaid 
of  the  Lord.  It  measures  our  science  by  its  fear¬ 
lessness  in  the  search  for  truth.  It  sets  for  the 
model  of  the  scientific  man  that  Christ  Who  died 
rather  than  retract,  and  Who  incurred  enormous 
risks  of  misunderstanding  rather  than  suppress  the 
word  He  had  to  proclaim.  It  justifies  investiga¬ 
tion  and  convinces  the  world  that  in  the  long  run 
it  is  always  safe  to  know  and  to  declare  the  facts  of 
the  case.  With  equal  remorselessness  it  measures 
our  ambitions  and  all  our  dreams  of  greatness,  our 
pleasures  and  frivolities  and  slightnesses.  These 
are  always  popular  and  are  understood  and  accepted 
as  the  normal  way  for  the  world  to  live.  But  the 
cross  forces  sacrifice  into  the  heart  of  life.  It 
condemns  selfishness,  the  oldest  idol  in  the  world. 
It  reveals  God’s  method  of  dying  in  sacrifice  and 
being  raised  again  in  power,  not  merely  as  an 
ancient  dogma  concerning  His  Son  in  Jerusalem, 
but  as  the  process  through  which  individual  lives 
and  the  history  of  the  race  must  move  forward 
through  the  ages.  It  sets  man  over  against  the 
world  and  proclaims  his  infinite  value  asking  in  its 
silent  eloquence,  What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he 
gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul  ?  Thus 
it  exalts  men  and  makes  them  know  the  superiority 
of  their  human  value  to  all  earthly  gains.  No  such 
claim  for  the  rights  of  man  was  ever  made  on  the 
earth  before.  He  has  a  right  not  onlv  to  the 


158  THE  CROSS  THE  MEASURE  OF  WORLD 


perishing  gains  of  a  day  and  to  equal  chances  in 
its  business,  but  to  righteousness  and  honour  and 
love,  things  which  will  outlast  all  earthly  success  or 
failure. 

The  cross  stretches  its  grim  measuring-line 
downwards,  searching  the  deep  places  of  life’s 
tragedy  and  man’s  misery.  It  measures  the  world’s 
pain  with  an  intimate  and  understanding  measure¬ 
ment,  and  it  offers  the  only  solution  for  the  mystery 
of  suffering  which  has  ever  satisfied  the  human 
soul.  In  all  generations  bruised  and  thwarted 
spirits  have  rebelled  against  the  injustice  of  life, 
and  have  taken  their  sufferings  as  a  humiliation. 
The  cross  proclaims  suffering  to  be  a  redeeming 
thing,  and  as  the  centuries  go  by  we  are  under¬ 
standing  better  and  better  the  truth  of  that  great 
pronouncement.  Take  the  instance  of  the  recent 
war.  It  is  the  fashion  now  to  deplore  the  lack  of 
noble  consequence  such  as  was  prophesied  from  it. 
Yet  in  the  hour  of  decision  the  question  was  forced 
upon  millions  of  young  men,  as  it  had  never  been 
before,  Which  is  the  nobler  destiny  for  man,  selfish 
ease  and  imperial  tyranny,  or  bloody  trenches  and 
the  steadfast  purpose  of  liberty  at  the  cost  of 
death?  Thus  to  the  end  of  time  will  the  cross  of 
Christ  exalt  and  glorify  suffering  undertaken  for 
all  honourable  causes.  It  will  whisper  to  the  pain 
and  agony  of  man  a  message  of  eternal  hope. 

Deeper  still  searches  the  cross  into  the  human 
tragedy,  measuring  the  sin  and  folly  of  the  ages. 


JOHN  KELMAN 


159 


Sin  has  been  esteemed  a  light  thing.  Men  have 
been  ingenious  in  discovering  excuses  for  it,  and 
in  practicing  easy  luxurious  ways  of  repentance 
which  might  silence  the  voice  of  conscience.  The 
music  of  the  Venusberg  has  always  been  trying  to 
drown  the  Pilgrim’s  March.  There  is  no  task 
which  has  more  constantly  exercised  mankind  than 
the  attempt  to  break  down  the  difference  between 
right  and  wrong  and  to  persuade  the  world  that 
there  is  no  real  difference.  All  such  moral  con¬ 
fusion  has  been  answered  by  the  late  Dr.  Denney 
in  the  one  sentence  that  Christ  died  for  the  differ¬ 
ence  between  right  and  wrong.  His  cross  is  still 
the  measure  of  the  world’s  power  to  resist  love, 
and  that  is  the  very  essence  of  sin  in  all  sorts.  To 
every  age,  beset  by  moral  scepticism,  which  would 
tell  the  young  generation  that  there  is  no  real  dif¬ 
ference  between  right  and  wrong,  Christ  gives  the 
conclusive  answer.  This  is  what  sin  meant  to 
Jesus — this  agony  of  spirit,  this  unspeakable  shame, 
this  death  that  followed  when  the  sin  of  the 
world  came  upon  His  soul.  No  man,  however 
wise  or  learned  he  may  be,  can  really  construct  a 
moral  philosophy  that  is  worthy  of  the  name  until 
he  has  measured  all  the  problems  of  good  and  evil 
at  the  cross  of  Christ. 

There  is  yet  another  direction  toward  which  the 
cross  points:  it  points  upward  toward  heaven  and 
is  the  measure  of  the  world  in  that  direction  also. 
Beyond  the  head  bowed  in  anguish  the  long 


160  THE  CEOSS  THE  MEASUEE  OF  WOELD 


straight  line  of  the  cross  pointed  toward  the 
darkened  skies,  and  pierced  through  them  to  the 
light  beyond.  It  measures  not  only  the  misery  of 
human  life  with  its  pain  and  sin,  but  also  the 
power  of  God  to  deal  with  it  at  its  worst;  It  has 
given  to  the  world  its  only  true  optimism.  There 
is  an  optimism  which  is  a  mere  dislike  to  look  at 
the  painful  side  of  things,  and  the  construction  of 
a  beautiful  world  by  the  simple  expedient  of  shut¬ 
ting  the  eyes  to  the  world  as  it  is.  That  kind  of 
optimism  had  long  ago  proved  a  delusion  which 
only  deepened  man’s  distrust  in  life.  Amid  the 
wreckage  of  such  vain  hopes  the  tall  cross  of 
Calvary  stands.  When  we  look  upon  it  we  are 
persuaded  that  there  is  here  the  one  power  in  the 
universe  able  to  look  with  open  eyes  upon  the 
worst,  and  still  believe  in  the  best.  In  the  cross 
love  has  proved  absolutely  able  to  cope  with  the 
very  worst  that  hell  can  do.  It  reveals  to  us  the 
enormous  stretch  of  the  love  and  power  of  God. 
We  do  not  seek  to  balance  one  of  His  attributes 
against  another,  and  read  into  the  cross  a  com¬ 
promise  between  justice  and  mercy.  We  find  in 
it  the  assurance  that  He  Himself  is  adequate  to 
deal  with  all  that  there  is  or  ever  can  be,  able  to 
save  to  the  uttermost.  Thus  the  cross  is  the 
measure  of  God’s  ability  to  deal  with  life,  a  prop¬ 
osition  which  includes  three  great  and  final 
thoughts. 

First  of  all,  it  shows  a  new  conception  of  love. 


JOHN  KELMAN 


161 


Love  has  too  often  been  looked  upon  as  a  mere 
gratification,  which  in  many  cases  is  neither  more 
nor  less  than  the  highest  degree  of  selfishness.  In 
its  new  meaning  love  proves  to  be  essentially  a 
gift.  Bearing  the  cross  in  mind  one  asks,  not  how 
can  I  get  out  of  fellowship  with  this  other,  but 
how  much  can  I  give,  contributing  to  the  other’s 
need.  Love  is  not  a  matter  of  pleasure  only,  but 
also  the  very  essence  of  life  and  duty.  It  is  not  a 
sweet  and  voluptuous  decoration,  but  the  very 
structure  of  the  house  of  life.  Here  then  in  the 
cross  we  see  all  that  love  can  do.  In  this  tremen¬ 
dous  exhibition  God  loves  man  to  the  uttermost, 
and  in  so  loving  him  He  has  set  the  one  authentic 
standard  for  all  our  lesser  human  loves. 

In  the  second  place,  the  cross  has  established  a 
measure  for  God’s  trust  in  man.  He  committed 
Christ  unreservedly  to  humanity  and  they  be¬ 
trayed  the  trust.  Yet  that  trust  was  given  in 
certain  knowledge  that  mankind  would  rebound 
from  its  betrayal,  and  come  back  in  tears  and 
shame  to  the  foot  of  the  very  cross  it  had  erected 
on  which  to  slay  Christ ;  and  when  men  come  back 
in  penitence  to  God  they  receive  the  last  and 
highest  exhibition  of  trust  that  is  possible  even  to 
the  Divine,  the  trust  of  forgiveness.  In  Christ’s 
day  many  sinners  heard  from  His  lips  the  words, 
Go  and  sin  no  more,  and  they  must  have  been 
astonished  at  the  amazing  confidence  which  these 
words  expressed  with  so  little  apparent  reason. 


162  THE  CEOSS  THE  MEASUEE  OF  WOELD 


But  the  forgiveness  and  trust  of  Christ  were  very 
wise,  and  His  cross  has  brought  them  down  the 
ages.  Sinners  still  find  their  forgiveness  and  re¬ 
demption  in  Him,  and  are  amazed  as  they  realize 
how  freely  and  fully  He  is  trusting  them.  To  the 
end  of  time  the  cross  will  be  the  measure  of  God’s 
trust  in  sinful  man. 

Finally,  the  cross  is  the  measure  of  hope.  The 
age-long  battle  between  optimism  and  pessimism 
swings  to  and  fro  continually.  There  is  one  thing 
that  can  settle  it  finally  on  the  side  of  hope,  and 
that  is  that  once  and  for  all  in  the  cross  of  Calvary 
love  proved  mightier  than  all  its  enemies.  The 
problem  of  Providence  is  perpetually  baffling  us  as 
it  meets  us  in  our  own  experience.  We  cannot 
but  feel  that  it  is  not  only  mysterious  but  some¬ 
times  apparently  unreasonable  that  we  should  be 
left  to  the  conscienceless  play  of  natural  laws  and 
so  completely  at  their  mercy.  It  is  in  the  cross 
that  we  find  that  higher  wisdom  and  that  individual 
affection  which  we  miss  so  terribly  in  Providence. 
Here  we  see  God  bearing  the  tragedy  of  the 
universe  and  yet  remaining  calm  amidst  it  all,  be¬ 
cause  of  that  secret  of  redemption  which  He 
knows  and  in  which  He  asks  mortals  also  to  con¬ 
fide. 

Thus  the  cross  of  Jesus  searches  and  measures 
the  world,  its  religions  and  its  wickednesses,  its 
appearances  and  its  realities  alike:  its  power  to 
bring  out  and  to  exhibit  the  worst  that  there  is  in 


JOHN 


163 


human  nature,  and  its  power  also  to  bring  out  the 
best.  After  the  measurement  is  done  and  we  come 
to  examine  the  record  of  it,  we  see  love  revealed 
as  the  absolute  master  of  the  universe,  and  all  that 
is  the  enemy  of  love  cast  into  eternal  contempt. 


XI 


LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 

By 

J.  FORT  NEWTON,  D.  D.,  Litt.  D., 

Minister  of  the  Church  of  the  Divine  Paternity, 

New  York 


Joseph  Fort  Newton  was  born  at  Decatur,  Texas, 
July  21,  1876.  He  was  a  student  at  Hardy  Institute 
and  received  his  theological  training  at  the  Southern 
Baptist  Seminary,  Louisville,  Ky.  Dr.  Newton  was 
ordained  a  Baptist  minister  in  1893;  pastor  First 
Baptist  Church,  Paris,  Texas,  1897-1898;  founder 
and  pastor  People’s  Church,  Dixon,  Ill.,  1901-1908; 
pastor  Liberal  Christian  Church,  Cedar  Rapids,  la., 
1908-1916.  From  the  latter  church,  Dr.  Newton  was 
called  to  the  pulpit  of  the  historic  City  Temple,  Lon¬ 
don,  where  he  remained  for  several  years.  He  is  at 
present  pastor  of  the  Church  of  the  Divine  Paternity, 
New  York.  Dr.  Newton  is  a  literary  artist,  and  a 
man  of  wide  sympathies  and  outlook. 

Among  his  many  volumes  of  published  sermons 
and  addresses  we  would  mention:  The  Religious 
Basis  of  a  Better  World  Order ,  The  Eternal  Christ , 
The  Ambassador,  The  Mercy  of  Hell  and  his  illumi¬ 
nating  diary,  Preaching  in  London. 


XI 


LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 

“And  it  came  to  pass ,  as  he  sat  at  meat  with  them, 
he  took  bread ,  and  blessed  it,  and  brake,  and  gave  to 
them.  And  their  eyes  were  opened,  and  they  knew 
him.” — Luke  24:30,  31. 

LOVERS  of  letters  will  recall  the  poem  en¬ 
titled  Conversation,  by  Cowper,  where, 
after  making  excellent  fun  of  various 
kinds  of  tedious  talkers,  he  stops  suddenly — as  if 
he  had  seen  a  vision.  With  arresting  abruptness 
he  thinks  of  that  never-to-be-forgotten  conversa¬ 
tion  in  the  gloaming  of  the  day  on  the  way  to 
Emmaus.  He  tells  what  “  happened  on  a  solemn 
even-tide/'  how  “  ere  yet  they  brought  their 
journey  to  an  end,  a  Stranger  joined  them,  cour¬ 
teous  as  a  Friend,”  gathering  up  the  thread  of  their 
despairing  talk,  with  “  truth  and  wisdom  gracing 
all  he  said.”  In  one  of  his  letters  the  poet  refers 
to  the  incident :  “  I  have  been  intimate  with  a 
man  of  fine  taste  who  has  confessed  to  me  that, 
though  he  could  not  subscribe  to  the  truth  of 
Christianity  itself,  he  thought  that  if  the  stamp  of 
Divinity  was  anywhere  to  be  found  in  the  Scrip¬ 
tures,  it  was  vividly  impressed  upon  that  passage 
of  St.  Luke.” 

It  is  indeed  true.  For  my  part,  no  other  scene 

167 


168 


LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 


in  the  Book  of  Faith,  whose  leaves  are  for  the 
healing  of  human  hearts,  is  so  perfect  an  example 
of  that  naturalization  of  the  Unseen,  which  is  the 
goal  of  religious  insight  and  experience.  There 
is  about  this  narrative  an  air  of  reality  which  sets 
it  apart  from  other  such  records.  It  has  a  re¬ 
straint,  a  dignity,  a  delicacy,  and  withal  an  in¬ 
effable  beauty,  which  give  it  every  mark  of  authen¬ 
ticity.  Moreover,  its  vivid  human  colour  and  its 
awful  yet  tender  disclosure  blend  as  naturally  as 
earth  and  sky  on  the  horizon.  No  imagined  ac¬ 
count  known  to  me  gives  anything  like  the  same 
impression  of  validity  in  beauty.  Here  are  the 
three  things  that  make  our  life  worth  while:  the 
Divine  companion,  the  sufficient  interpretation,  and 
the  triumph  of  spiritual  personality.  Jesus  was 
known  to  His  friends,  not  by  His  profound  exposi¬ 
tion  of  prophecy,  but  by  a  familiar  little  gesture — 
all  His  own — in  the  breaking  of  bread.  Of  all 
pages  of  the  Bible,  none  is  more  exquisitely  satis¬ 
fying,  none  more  luminously  revealing  of  what  we 
really  need  to  know. 

By  the  same  token,  it  is  in  the  atmosphere  of  that 
sacramental  even-tide — with  its  glowing  heart  of 
fellowship,  and  its  gentle  unveilings — that  we 
ought  to  discuss  the  questions  that  rise  out  of  the 
Easter  anthem.  The  last  entry  in  the  Journal  of 
Sir  Walter  Scott  was  as  follows:  “We  slept 

reasonably,  but  on  the  next  morning - ”  The 

sentence  was  never  finished.  Death  cut  it  short. 


J.  FORT  NEWTON 


169 


Only  Sir  Walter  himself  knew  what  came  to  him 
on  the  next  morning.  But  once  we  know  that  life 
is  one,  here,  hereafter,  and  forever,  unbroken,  un¬ 
interrupted,  and  that,  had  Sir  Walter  made  himself 
known  to  his  friends,  they  would  have  known  him 
there,  as  they  knew  him  here,  by  some  little  charac¬ 
teristic  of  gesture  or  turn  of  mind,  the  mystery  be¬ 
comes  plainer  and  the  wonder  more  intelligible. 
Once  we  are  assured  of  life  after  death — not 
another  life,  but  life  further  on — it  is  the  natural 
and  eager  inquiry  of  humanity  to  know  what  hap¬ 
pens  on  “  the  next  morning.”  It  is  not  enough  to 
know  that  we  will  continue  to  exist;  we  desire  to 
know  how,  when,  where? 

There  is  a  famous  story  of  an  officer  in  the 
British  army  in  India,  who,  when  discussing  these 
matters  with  his  friends,  remarked  that  some  day 
he  expected  to  know  in  five  minutes  more  than  all 
the  philosophers  had  ever  learned.  When  asked 
what  he  meant,  he  said:  “  The  first  five  minutes 
after  death!”  What  does  the  soul  discover  in 
that  moment  of  emancipation?  Such  a  question 
is  in  all  our  hearts  when  we  think  of  our  own 
passing,  or  follow  in  faith  and  imagination  the 
flight  of  those  who  vanish  from  us.  Jesus  did  not 
answer  the  question.  He  revealed  the  triumph 
of  personality,  but  He  left  the  details  hidden  by  a 
discreet  and  wise  silence,  in  order,  no  doubt,  not 
to  interfere  with  the  life  that  now  is.  It  was 
enough,  He  thought,  to  make  the  life  beyond  real, 


170 


LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 


homelike,  and  near,  confirming  faith  without  satis¬ 
fying  mere  curiosity,  and  even  we  can  see  that  it 
is  better  so.  In  a  world  where  there  is  good  to 
do,  truth  to  win,  and  “  beauty  passes  with  the  sun 
on  her  wings/’  the  question  of  the  angel  of  the 
Ascension  is  valid:  “  Why  stand  ye  gazing  into 
heaven  ?  ” 

As  we  knew  nothing  of  life  here  before  enter¬ 
ing  it,  and  could  not  have  imagined  its  conditions, 
so  we  cannot  picture  the  details  of  life  further  on, 
which  must  be  different  from  the  physical  limita¬ 
tions  which  beset  us  here.  All  attempts  to  do  so 
are  futile  and  unsatisfactory,  when,  indeed,  they 
are  not  grotesque  and  irritating.  They  are  for 
the  most  part  projections  into  the  future  of  de¬ 
sires  unfulfilled  on  earth,  finding  there  what  is 
missed  here.  For  John  on  Patmos,  sundered  from 
his  friends  by  the  imprisoning  sea,  “  There  shall 
be  no  more  sea  ” ;  for  Robert  Hall,  in  a  long  agony 
of  pain,  heaven  is  health;  for  Wilberforce,  hin¬ 
dered  in  his  labour  of  love,  it  is  un thwarted  affec¬ 
tion.  The  Paradiso  of  Dante,  with  its  throne  ap¬ 
proached  through  circles  of  blinding  light,  is  as  un¬ 
attractive  as  the  military  heaven  of  Milton,  with  its 
shock  of  armies  and  its  tramping  legions.  Sir 
Conan  Doyle  and  his  fellow-seekers  have  helped  to 
humanize  the  after  life  in  our  thought,  but  the 
picture  is  spoiled  when  they  try  to  fill  out  the  de¬ 
tails.  The  grand  dream  of  Swedenborg  is  nobler 
and  more  worthy,  but  it  leaves  much  to  be  de~ 


J.  FOET  NEWTON 


171 


sired — albeit  surpassing  all  other  such  portrayals 
alike  in  moral  insight  and  spiritual  reality.  Since 
all  efforts  to  picture  the  future  in  detail  are  un¬ 
satisfactory,  the  sum  of  wisdom,  no  less  than  of 
faith,  lies  in  the  confidence  that  the  God  who  made 
us  and  led  us  to  what  we  are  will  lead  us  to  what 
we  ought  to  be. 

Must  we  then  admit  that  we  know  nothing  at  all 
about  the  life  after  death,  and  are  doomed  to  live 
in  a  world  of  dim  hints  and  cryptic  analogies,  with 
no  glad,  triumphant  assurance?  Far,  very  far 
from  it!  Indeed  the  whole  point  of  my  sermon  is 
to  show  that  we  know  much — very  much — about 
life  after  death,  both  as  to  its  reality  and  its  con¬ 
ditions — all,  in  fact,  that  we  really  need  to  know — 
and  if  we  are  wise  enough  to  lay  the  facts  to  heart, 
we  shall  find  consolation  for  to-day  and  inspiration 
for  the  morrow.  Jesus  lifted  our  immortal  faith 
in  immortality  into  the  light,  showing  us  that  the 
Eternal  Life  is  here,  not  a  life  into  which  we  enter 
at  death,  but  a  present  reality,  at  once  a  possession 
and  prophecy.  His  religion,  as  Harnack  said,  is 
nothing  else  than  the  eternal  life  lived  in  time,  in 
the  spirit  of  love  and  by  the  grace  of  God.  Emer¬ 
son  was  right  when  he  refused  to  discuss  mere 
survival,  saying  that  Jesus,  who  lived  in  the  realm 
of  moral  realities,  heedless  of  sensual  fortunes, 
never  made  the  separation  of  the  idea  of  duration 
from  the  essence  of  the  spiritual  attributes  of  man, 
“  nor  uttered  a  syllable  concerning  the  duration  of 


172 


LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 


the  soul.”  No,  it  was  left  for  His  disciples  to 
sever  duration  from  the  moral  elements  and  to 
teach  the  immortality  of  the  soul  as  a  doctrine,  and 
maintain  it  by  evidences.  “  The  moment  the  doc¬ 
trine  is  separately  taught,  man  is  already  fallen. 
In  the  flowing  of  love,  in  the  adoration  of  hu¬ 
mility,  there  is  no  question  of  continuance.”  Only 
in  a  spiritual  universe  is  the  question  of  immor¬ 
tality  pertinent,  and  in  such  a  universe  life  is 
measured  not  by  quantity  but  by  quality,  not  by 
duration  but  by  depth.  The  Eternal  Life,  then,  is 
all  of  a  piece,  one  here,  hereafter,  and  forever,  its 
conditions  everywhere  the  same,  its  experience  a 
perpetual  revelation — pray,  what  more  do  we  really 
want  or  need  to  know  ? 

Let  us  be  more  specific,  in  the  effort  to  make  this 
matter  plain,  as  a  help  both  to  our  thinking  and  to 
our  living.  What  we  have  to  remember  is  that  all 
the  realities  that  make  life  great,  deep  and  re¬ 
warding,  abide  hereafter  untouched  by  time  or 
death.  They  are  at  once  realities  and  prophecies 
which,  if  we  consider  them  deeply,  are  like  lumi¬ 
nous  streamers  thrown  forward  by  an  enormous 
search-light,  and  if  they  do  not  reveal  all,  they  do 
illumine  the  pathways  of  the  future,  just  as  they 
sustain,  fortify,  and  guide  us  here  below.  First  of 
all,  God  lives  here,  hereafter,  and  unto  everlasting, 
and  in  Him  there  is  no  death,  no  darkness,  no 
distance.  Without  God  immortality  would  be  the 
ultimate  horror  of  desolation,  not  a  destiny  but  a 


J.  FORT  KEWTON 


173 


doom.  With  Him,  it  is  a  lengthening  vista  of  hope 
and  joy.  “  In  him  we  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being,”  said  the  Apostle,  and  that  will  be  as 
true  after  death  as  it  is  here.  “  Lord,  thou  hast 
been  our  dwelling-place  in  all  generations,  from 
everlasting  to  everlasting,”  said  the  Psalmist;  and 
death  does  not  so  much  as  cast  a  shadow  upon  that 
elemental  fact.  As  for  man,  his  days  may  be  as 
the  grass  that  withers,  as  a  tale  that  is  told,  as  a 
vapour  that  melts,  but  God  lives,  and  we  live  in 
Him! 

i  Second,  we  live  in  a  living,  vibrant,  prophetic 
universe  in  which  Life  is  the  vivid,  radiant,  all- 
conquering  reality.  Life,  with  its  vigour,  its 
movement,  its  colour,  its  power,  is  the  one  over¬ 
flowing,  overwhelming  fact.  Even  matter,  if  we 
analyze  it,  dissolves  into  energy,  activity,  power. 
Dead  inert  matter,  as  we  now  know,  simply  does 
not  exist.  ^Third,  life  does  not  even  stand  still, 
much  less  die.  Growth,  movement,  progress ;  that 
is  its  law.  The  one  stupendous  fact,  revealed  in 
all  the  universe,  so  far  as  we  can  read  its  laws,  is 
an  irresistible,  pauseless  advance.  From  the 
amoeba  to  man,  from  the  savage  to  the  saint,  it  is 
ever  an  ascending  march,  in  which  life  is  better, 
finer,  nobler,  farther  on,  disclosing  higher  forms. 
Here  our  outlook  differs  radically  from  the  out¬ 
look  of  the  ancient  world,  when  men  thought  of  life 
after  death  as  a  pale,  thin  shadow  of  the  life  that 
now  is.  With  us  it  is  different.  Our  clearer 


174 


LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 


vision  is  of  life  bursting  through  limitations  into 
new  fields,  unfolding  new  potentialities,  making 
to-day  better  than  yesterday  and  prophesying  a 
better  to-morrow.  In  accordance  with  this  uni¬ 
versal  law  of  progress,  life  after  death  will  be  an 
advance,  a  step  forward,  an  adventure  into  new 
lands,  new  visions,  new  and  unimagined  discov¬ 
eries  ! 

Fourth,  add  now  the  fact  of  a  universal  moral 
order,  sovereign  everywhere,  and  it  begins  to  be 
clear  that  we  know  a  great  deal  about  the  life  after 
death.  It  moves  under  the  same  moral  jurisdic¬ 
tion,  in  obedience  to  the  same  law  of  righteousness 
and  retribution.  Neither  in  life  nor  in  death  can 
we  escape  the  moral  law.  Its  empire  is  eternal.  If 
we  take  the  wings  of  morning  and  fly  to  the  utter¬ 
most  end  of  the  sky,  lo  it  is  there.  If  we  sink  to 
the  lowest  depth,  behold  it  is  there.  There  is  no 
redemption,  here  or  anywhere,  until  we  learn  to 
do  justly,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with 
God.  The  idea  that  death  is  moral  doom — fixing 
fate,  either  for  salvation  or  damnation — is  an 
absurdity,  in  violation  of  the  simplest  laws  of  the 
moral  life.  Death  does  not  make  a  man  a  saint. 
It  does  not  petrify  him  in  sin.  It  does  not  touch 
the  moral  life  at  all,  save  as  it  may  strip  us  of 
sensuality  and  set  us  free  from  handicaps  which 
beset  us  here.  The  awakening  after  death  may  be 
bewildering,  but  the  moral  continuity  of  life  is 
unbroken.  Life  after  death  begins  where  it  leaves 


J.  FORT  NEWTON 


175 


off  here,  without  interruption.  “  To-day  thou 
shalt  be  with  me  in  paradise  ” — that  is,  a  garden — 
said  Jesus  to  the  man  who  died  with  Him.  To-day, 
before  the  sun  goes  down!  There,  as  here,  God 
lives,  the  moral  law  rules,  and  salvation  is  in  the 
fellowship  of  love  and  righteousness. 

Fifth,  the  laws  of  the  spiritual  life  are  not 
clouded,  much  less  abrogated,  by  the  ordeal  of 
physical  death.  What  are  those  laws?  The  life 
of  love,  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  and  the  doing 
of  good!  Whatever  else  may  pass  away,  love 
remains,  and  love  never  faileth,  for  God  is  love. 
It  is  His  nature,  His  spirit,  His  life,  inexhaustible, 
indestructible,  all-conquering — a  love  to  which  we 
may  trust  our  souls,  and  the  destiny  of  those  we 
love.  Love  in  ourselves  is  the  revelation  of  God, 
and  its  predictions  cannot  fail  of  fulfillment.  If 
all  is  law,  all  is  love  too,  as  Browning  said,  and  this 
law  of  love  is  the  life  of  God,  as  it  is  the  hope  and 
destiny  of  humanity.  If  we  are  to  know  the  truth, 
as  Bergson  said,  it  must  be  “  after  the  fashion  of 
one  who  loves.”  How  little  we  know,  and  how 
much  we  long  to  know !  How  the  heart  beats  high 
when  we  hear  the  words  of  Kepler,  as  he  looked 
through  his  glass  into  the  heavens :  “  O  Almighty 
God !  I  think  Thy  thoughts  after  Thee !  ” 
Eternity  will  be  needed,  and  endless  development, 
if  we  are  to  follow  the  long  flight  of  the  thoughts 
of  God.  What  joy  of  revelation  awaits  the  mind 
that  seeks  the  freedom  of  the  truth,  of  which  we 


176 


LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 


read  only  here  a  line  and  there  a  stanza  in  the 
dim  twilight  of  this  world.  The  words  of  Newton 
rise  from  prayer  to  praise:  “  Glory  to  God  who  has 
permitted  me  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  skirts  of 
His  garments !  My  calculations  have  encountered 
the  march  of  the  stars !  ”  Even  in  this  tangled 
life  there  is  no  joy  like  the  Doing  of  Good !  Jesus 
made  it  His  business,  and  He  had  no  other  occupa¬ 
tion.  Love,  Truth,  and  the  Doing  of  Good — to  be 
partners  with  God  in  His  moral  enterprise,  fellow- 
workers  in  the  redemptive  making  of  humanity — 
what  more  do  we  ask  to  know  of  life  after  death? 

“  Old  Past,  let  go  and  drop  in  the  sea ! 

Till  fathomless  waters  cover  thee ! 

For  I  am  living  but  thou  art  dead, 

Thou  drawest  back,  I  strive  ahead 
The  Day  to  find.” 

Toward  the  end  of  his  life  Dostoevsky  divided 
the  race  into  two  classes,  those  who  know  the 
eternal  life  and  those  who  do  not,  and  he  thought 
the  fate  of  civilization  will  rest  with  those  who  are 
citizens  of  eternity.  It  is  indeed  true.  Material¬ 
ism  is  disintegrating  anarchy.  Pessimism  is 
poison.  Cynicism  and  scepticism  are  forms  of 
death.  All  the  dear  interests  and  institutions  of 
humanity  have  their  basis  in  the  eternal  life,  else 
they  cannot  abide.  It  would  be  easy  to  delude 
ourselves  and  suppose  that  society  is  held  together 
by  outward  forms,  but  these  no  more  cement  it 


J.  FORT  NEWTON 


177 


than  the  tortoise  in  the  old  fable  upheld  the  earth. 
Our  human  world  is  kept  in  place  and  urged  along 
its  orbit  by  unseen  forces.  Thence  come  those 
impulses  to  progress,  those  insights  and  aspirations, 
which  impel  man  to  vaster  issues;  they  are  the 
pressure  upon  him  of  the  endless  life.  Men  have 
tried  to  found  empires  upon  slavery,  upon  brute 
force,  upon  cunning  and  cruelty,  and  they  have 
failed.  Liberty,  justice,  love,  truth  are  things  of 
the  eternal  life,  without  which  customs  are  cob¬ 
webs  and  laws  are  ropes  of  sand.  The  power  of 
an  endless  life  is  thus  the  creative  and  constructive 
force  of  social  life;  and  he  renders  the  highest 
service  to  society  who  makes  the  eternal  vivid  to 
men — makes  it  something  more  than  a  visionary 
scene  suspended  in  the  sky. 

What  is  true  of  social  life  is  equally  true  in  the 
making  of  character  and  personality — the  two 
loveliest  flowers  grown  in  these  short  days  of  sun 
and  frost.  Only  recently  a  great  physician  said 
that  subconscious  health  cannot  be  obtained  in  one 
who  has  lost  faith  in  immortality.  Without  it  the 
noblest  powers  of  the  soul  are  inhibited,  the  divin- 
est  instincts  are  frustrated,  having  no  happy  release 
and  no  promise  of  fulfillment.  They  are  driven 
inward,  and  make  a  restless  ache  in  the  heart,  an 
anxiety  which  nothing  can  heal.  When  we  know 
the  Eternal  life,  all  doors  are  open  and  the  great 
aspirations  of  the  heart  take  wings.  The  impinge¬ 
ment  of  eternity  upon  man  gives  to  the  moral  sense 


178 


LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 


an  august  authority,  and  makes  religion  not  a 
dogma,  but  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man.  Life 
everywhere  grows  in  dignity,  meaning  and  worth 
when  it  is  lived  in  the  fellowship  of  eternal  things. 
Under  the  expansive  pressure  of  eternal  values  we 
become  aware  of  what  life  is,  what  it  means,  and 
what  it  prophesies,  eager  only  to  do  the  will  of 
God,  whether  to-morrow  find  us  toiling  here,  or  out 
yonder  with  the  dwellers  of  the  City  on  the  Hill. 


XII 

RECIPROCAL  FAITH 


By 

F.  W.  NORWOOD,  D.  D., 
Minister  of  The  City  Temple ,  London 


Frederick  W.  Norwood,  the  present  minister  of 
City  Temple,  London,  was  born  in  Australia.  At 
the  outbreak  of  the  World  War  he  went  to  France 
as  a  chaplain  where  he  became  exceedingly  popular 
among  the  soldiers.  In  1919,  Mr.  Norwood  suc¬ 
ceeded  Dr.  Joseph  Fort  Newton  as  pastor  of  the 
London  City  Temple.  His  rise  in  pulpit  fame  has 
been  meteoric,  but  his  reputation  has  been  made  and 
will  remain  secure.  During  the  summer  of  1922  he 
exchanged  pulpits  with  Dr.  Charles  E.  Jefferson  of 
the  Broadway  Tabernacle  Church,  New  York,  as  an 
ambassador  of  Anglo-American  friendship. 

He  was  granted  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity, 
by  Ursinus  College,  during  his  American  visit.  Dr. 
Norwood’s  sermons  are  intensely  human  and  vital; 
his  pulpit  manners  are  exceedingly  simple  and  un¬ 
conventional.  He  is  author  of  a  volume  of  really 
great  sermons  entitled :  The  Cross  in  the  Garden . 


XII 


RECIPROCAL  FAITH 

“Many  believed  in  his  name  .  .  .  but  Jesus 

did  not  commit  himself  unto  them.,> — John  2 :  23,  24. 

u  1  UT  Jesus.”  That  disjunctive  is  dislocat- 
ing,  startling,  arresting !  We  had  thought 
that  He  wanted  people  to  believe  in  Him ; 
we  had  been  told  that  the  reason  He  did  these 
signs  was  that  they  might  believe  in  Him.  Why 
then,  when  they  did  believe  in  Him,  did  He  fail  to 
respond  ?  Have  they  not  said  in  our  ears  until  we 
were  weary  of  hearing,  “  Only  believe  ”  ?  But 
there  seems  to  have  been  a  difficulty  upon  His  side ; 
they  believed,  but  He  did  not  respond.  “  But 
Jesus!”  The  disjunctive  arrests  the  reverent 
mind,  sets  it  thinking,  probing  back  even  to  the 
original  tongue  itself,  and  then  we  discover  that 
the  same  word  in  the  Greek  is  rendered  differently 
in  our  English  translation.  The  same  word  that 
means  “  belief  ”  is  also  translated  “  commit.” 

“  Many  believed  in  him  .  .  .  but  Jesus  did 

not  commit  himself  unto  them.” 

Our  translators,  in  seeking  to  find  a  word  which 
would  make  the  meaning  clear  to  English  ears,  have 
probably  to  some  extent  obscured  the  sense.  They 

might  have  got  nearer  to  the  mark  if  they  had  said, 

181 


182 


RECIPROCAL  FAITH 


“  Many  believed  in  Him,  but  Jesus  did  not  believe 
in  them.” 

Belief  then  is  a  reciprocal  thing  after  all.  It 
takes  two  to  make  a  Christian — myself  and  Jesus. 
If  I  believe  in  Him,  and  He  does  not  believe  in  me, 
am  I  a  Christian?  How  futile  it  has  been  for  us 
to  put  all  the  emphasis  upon  our  side  of  believing. 
Belief  is  a  reciprocal  thing.  We  have  overem¬ 
phasized  the  value  of  the  creed,  yet  nothing  has 
been  more  often  demonstrated  than  the  fact  that 
correctness  in  creed  is  not  necessarily  the  same 
thing  as  correctness  in  spirit.  One  would  trust  a 
Christian  with  one’s  life,  but  one  would  not  neces¬ 
sarily  trust  the  merely  orthodox.  The  creed  is  our 
side  of  faith,  but  there  is  another  side,  and  faith  is 
not  consummated  until  the  two  meet.  That  is  a 
fact  of  human  experience. 

Christopher  Columbus  was  not  the  only  man  who 
believed  that  the  world  was  round ;  there  were  other 
men  who  believed  that,  but  the  round  world  did  not 
commit  itself  to  them.  It  did  to  Columbus;  it  laid 
hold  of  him,  took  him  by  the  hand,  led  him  down 
to  the  sea,  where  he  sat  for  long  hours  on  the 
shore,  considering  the  bits  of  driftwood  that  came 
from  the  unknown;  presently  it  led  him  on  board 
a  little  ship,  so  that  he  sailed  away  over  the  wide 
sea,  till  at  last  the  round  world  whispered  to  him, 
“  See,  you  believed  in  me,  I  have  committed  myself 
to  you,  I  have  told  you  my  secret;  go  back  and 
tell  the  world  what  you  have  learned.,, 


F.  W.  NORWOOD 


183 


Belief  is  not  consummated  until  that  in  which 
you  believe  trusts  you  and  commits  itself  to  you. 
For  true  belief  is  mutual  belief  and  is  also  a 
mutual  committal. 

All  men  believe  in  peace,  but  if  peace  were  a 
personal  spirit,  would  she  commit  herself  to  all 
men? 

All  men  believe  in  the  League  of  Nations,  or  at 
least  a  great  many  men,  but  could  the  spirit  of  the 
League  of  Nations  commit  herself  to  all  men? 

All  men  believe  in  honesty,  up  to  a  point  at  any 
rate;  they  like  to  be  so  dealt  with,  they  see  quite 
clearly  that  social,  industrial  and  commercial  life 
are  not  possible  without  it,  but  could  the  spirit  of 
honesty  commit  herself  to  all  men? 

All  men  believe  in  purity,  there  are  some  lives 
whose  purity  they  would  guard  with  their  own,  but 
could  the  spirit  of  purity  commit  herself  to  them? 

They  only  are  honest  whom  honesty  herself 
would  trust ;  they  only  are  pure  whom  purity  would 
trust.  There  are  two  sides  to  every  effort  of 
faith. 

After  all,  what  I  believe  depends  upon  a  good 
many  things.  It  depends  to  a  great  extent  upon 
the  way  in  which  I  have  been  brought  up.  It 
depends  also  upon  the  cleanness  with  which  certain 
things  have  been  explained,  upon  the  nature  of  the 
experiences  through  which  I  have  passed  in  life, 
and  also  upon  my  own  reaction  to  those  factors,  so 
that  what  I  believe  depends  not  upon  myself  alone. 


184 


RECIPROCAL  FAITH 


It  is  not  impossible  that  there  are  some  folk  who 
have  been  brought  up  in  a  wrong  way,  to  whom 
things  have  never  been  explained,  whose  experi¬ 
ences  have  been  very  adverse,  and  yet  Jesus  might 
believe  in  them,  though  they  did  not  believe  in  Him. 

In  that  great  parable,  which  He  told,  of  the  end 
of  all  things,  the  parable  of  the  sheep  and  the  goats, 
as  we  call  it,  you  remember  He  represented  Him¬ 
self  as  saying,  “  Blessed  are  ye,”  and  some  of  those 
to  whom  He  spoke  said,  “  Lord,  when  saw  we 
thee  ?  ”  They  did  not  know  Him,  they  had  never 
met  Him,  but  He  said,  “  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it 
unto  these,  ye  did  it  unto  me.”  They  did  not 
believe  in  Him,  but  He  believed  in  them.  I  venture 
to  think  that  there  are  many  people  in  this  world 
who  do  not  believe  in  Jesus,  who  never  heard  His 
name,  who  have  not  had  the  possibility  of  believing, 
but  He  may  believe  in  them;  and  if  one  has  to 
separate  the  two,  surely  that  is  the  greater  thing 
after  all. 

As  we  study  the  life  of  the  Master,  in  His  deal¬ 
ings  with  men,  does  it  not  seem  to  you  that  the 
chief  factor  in  their  salvation  was  not  so  much 
their  belief  in  Him  as  His  belief  in  them? 

“  Simon,”  said  He,  the  first  day  that  Peter  came 
to  Him,  “  thou  shalt  be  called  a  rock.”  Simon 
Peter  was  anything  but  a  rock,  the  days  came  again 
and  again  when  that  element  of  instability  in  his 
character  allowed  him  to  be  swept  off  his  feet  and 
threatened  to  engulf  him,  but  I  can  imagine  Peter 


F.  W.  NORWOOD 


185 


pulling  himself  up  and  saying,  “  He  said  I  was  a 
rock,”  and  a  rock  he  became  at  last. 

Thomas  was  not  very  successful  as  a  believer; 
he  was  not  built  that  way;  he  could  not  help  him¬ 
self;  he  had  to  ask  questions,  and  often  enough  he 
found  his  problems  insoluble.  But  Jesus  believed 
in  Thomas,  and  one  day  revealed  Himself  in  a 
special  manner  to  him.  Jesus  knew  what  we  dis¬ 
cover  as  we  study  the  life  of  Thomas,  that  per¬ 
plexed  as  he  was  mentally,  he  was  very  loyal  per¬ 
sonally.  It  was  Thomas  who  said,  when  they  tried 
in  vain  to  restrain  Jesus  from  going  down  amongst 
the  Jews  for  fear  He  might  be  stoned,  “  Let  us  go 
with  him,  that  we  may  die  with  him.”  Thomas 
was  not  very  clear  in  his  theological  beliefs,  but  he 
was  very  loyal  in  his  personal  trust,  and  Jesus 
believed  in  Thomas. 

Jesus  believed  in  Zaccheus;  I  do  not  know  why, 
— I  cannot  find  anything  about  Zaccheus  that  makes 
me  disposed  to  believe  in  him,  except  that  Jesus  did. 
He  was  chief  of  the  publicans,  and  the  publicans 
were  a  bad  lot,  but  Jesus  believed  in  Zaccheus,  and 
Zaccheus  came  down  from  his  tree  into  the  midst 
of  the  hostile  crowd  and  said: 

“  Lord,  the  half  of  my  goods  I  give  to  the  poor ; 
and  if  I  have  wrongfully  exacted  aught  from  any 
man,  I  restore  fourfold.” 

Jesus  believed  in  Zaccheus,  and  Zaccheus  accord¬ 
ingly  believed  in  both  Jesus  and  himself. 

Jesus  believed  in  Mary  Magdalene;  I  do  not 


186 


EECIPEOCAL  FAITH 


know  why.  There  is  not  much  in  her  life  to  in¬ 
spire  confidence,  but  Jesus  believed  in  her,  and 
Mary  Magdalene  became  pure  and  beautiful  be¬ 
cause  of  His  belief. 

Jesus  believed  in  the  woman  of  Samaria;  I  can 
hardly  tell  why.  To  me  she  seems  ignorant,  vulgar, 
curious,  as  well  as  immoral,  but  He  believed  in  her, 
and  the  woman  responded  to  His  belief  and  became 
a  naive  evangelist. 

It  was  the  same  in  His  pictorial  teaching.  Jesus 
believed  in  the  publican  in  the  Temple;  whether  he 
was  a  real  character  or  not  I  do  not  know,  but  he 
was  typical.  Jesus  believed  in  the  publican  who 
only  smote  his  breast  and  said,  “  God,  be  merciful 
to  me  a  sinner.”  He  did  not  seem  to  believe  over¬ 
much  in  the  Pharisee,  though  the  odds  are  all  in 
his  favour.  He  had  performed  all  his  religious 
duties,  he  fasted  twice  in  the  week,  he  gave  alms; 
there  appears  to  be  little  wrong  in  the  Pharisee, 
but  Jesus  did  not  believe  in  him  much.  He  did 
believe  in  the  publican,  and  somehow  our  hearts  go 
out  to  the  publican  and  not  to  the  Pharisee. 

Jesus  believed  in  the  younger  brother  in  that 
parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son;  I  do  not  know  why; 
there  does  not  seem  much  indication  that  he  was 
worth  believing  in.  Thoughtless,  selfish,  grasping, 
riotous,  careless.  I  have  seen  lots  of  prodigals  like 
that;  God  knows  they  are  pitiful  people;  they  have 
such  a  way  of  drifting  back  again  to  the  hog- 
troughs.  One  would  find  it  easier  to  believe  in 


F.  W.  NORWOOD 


187 


the  elder  brother,  who  had  never  done  anything 
palpably  wrong,  but  had  been  a  loyal  son  and  a 
faithful  worker  all  the  days  of  his  life.  But  Jesus 
believed  in  the  younger  one,  and  the  world’s  sym¬ 
pathy  goes  in  the  same  direction.  You  feel  some¬ 
how  there  was  that  in  him,  in  spite  of  his  weak¬ 
nesses,  which  made  him  superior  to  the  elder 
brother.  It  was  the  belief  of  Jesus  in  them  that 
transformed  men  more  than  their  belief  in  Him. 

And  surely  it  is  the  same  to-day.  It  is  not  so 
much  what  I  believe,  for  I  have  been  taught  many 
things,  as  you  have,  and  have  had  certain  influ¬ 
ences  playing  upon  me  all  the  time,  as  you  have. 
It  is  not  so  much  what  we  believe;  that  is  half  of 
the  problem ;  but  the  real  value  lies  in  the  response 
that  comes  to  us  from  that  in  which  we  believe.  In 
other  words,  a  Christian  is  not  a  man  who  holds 
on  to  Jesus  by  a  mere  intellectual  effort ;  a  Christian 
is  a  man  or  woman  in  whom  the  Spirit  of  Jesus 
becomes  manifest.  Jesus  may  become  manifest  in 
a  man  or  woman  whose  mental  knowledge  concern¬ 
ing  Him  is  very  vague  and  imperfect  indeed. 

I  have  been  reading  a  book  during  the  week  by 
the  Marquise  da  la  Tour  du  Pin,  who  lived  in  the 
days  of  the  French  Revolution.  It  was  not  a  book 
that  attracted  me  for  some  time.  She  was  one  of 
the  gay  Court  of  Marie  Antoinette;  she  lived  her 
butterfly  life,  while  France  was  reeling  down  to 
destruction;  she  was  flitting  from  one  ballroom  to 
another,  while  hunger  and  despair  were  eating  into 


188 


RECIPROCAL  FAITH 


the  hearts  of  the  people.  She  was  giving  a  banquet, 
as  she  puts  it  naively,  of  twenty  dishes,  while  the 
Bastille  was  falling;  she  was  living  in  the  palace 
of  the  King,  but  did  not  know  anything  was  wrong 
until  she  saw  that  motley  mob,  mostly  of  women, 
come  surging  out  of  Paris,  demanding  bread,  and 
she  only  records  that  they  filled  her  with  disgust. 
Yet  you  cannot  be  angry  with  her;  it  was  the  way 
she  had  been  brought  up.  She  had  always  lived 
like  that,  devout  in  her  religion  (she  had  lived  in 
the  house  of  an  Archbishop,  though  that  did  not 
mean  much) ;  she  is  not  much  to  be  blamed;  she 
just  did  not  know. 

At  last  she  escaped  with  her  husband  to  America, 
where  they  lived  on  a  farm.  It  was  just  there 
that  something  happened.  She  says : 

“  I  was  feeling  very  happy  under  these  circum¬ 
stances,  when  God  struck  me  a  most  unexpected 
blow,  and  as  I  then  imagined,  the  most  cruel  and 
terrible  that  one  could  endure.  Alas,  I  have  since 
experienced  others  which  have  surpassed  it  in  se¬ 
verity.  My  little  Seraphine  was  taken  from  us  by  a 
sudden  illness  very  common  in  this  part  of  the  coun¬ 
try — a  kind  of  infant  paralysis.  She  died  in  a  few 
hours  without  losing  consciousness.  .  .  . 

“  There  was  no  Catholic  Priest  either  in  Albany  or 
in  the  neighbourhood.  My  husband,  who  did  not 
wish  to  have  a  Protestant  Minister  called,  himself 
performed  the  last  rites  for  our  child,  and  placed  her 
in  a  little  enclosure  which  had  been  arranged  to  serve 


F.  W.  NOEWOOD 


189 


as  a  cemetery  for  the  inhabitants  of  the  farm.  It 
was  situated  in  the  middle  of  our  woods.  Almost 
every  day  I  went  to  kneel  upon  the  grave,  the  last 
resting-place  of  the  child  whom  I  had  so  much  loved, 
and  it  was  there  that  God  gave  to  me  a  change  of 
heart. 

“  Up  to  this  period  of  my  life,  although  I  was  far 
from  being  irreligious,  I  had  never  taken  much  in¬ 
terest  in  religion.  During  the  course  of  my  educa¬ 
tion  no  one  had  ever  spoken  to  me  of  religion.  Dur¬ 
ing  the  first  years  of  my  childhood,  I  had  had  under 
my  eyes  the  worst  possible  examples.  In  the  high 
society  of  Paris  I  had  been  witness  of  scandals,  so 
often  repeated  that  they  had  become  familiar  to  me 
to  the  point  of  no  longer  moving  me.  In  this  way 
every  thought  of  morality  had  been  benumbed  in  my 
heart,  but  the  hour  had  come  when  I  had  to  recognize 
the  hand  which  had  smitten  me. 

“  I  do  not  know  exactly  how  to  describe  the  trans¬ 
formation  which  came  over  me.  It  seemed  to  me  as 
if  a  voice  cried  out  to  me  that  I  must  change  my 
whole  being.  Kneeling  upon  the  grave  of  my  child, 
I  implored  her  to  obtain  from  God,  who  had  already 
recalled  her  to  Him,  my  pardon  and  a  little  relief 
from  my  distress.  My  prayer  was  heard.  God  ac¬ 
corded  me  then  the  grace  to  know  and  serve  Him. 
He  gave  me  the  courage  to  bend  very  humbly  under 
the  stroke  which  had  smitten  me  and  to  prepare  my¬ 
self  to  support  without  complaining  the  new  griefs 
by  which  in  His  justice  He  deemed  it  proper  to  try 
me  in  the  future.  From  that  day  the  divine  will 
found  me  submissive  and  resigned.” 


190 


EECIPEOCAL  FAITH 


Roman  Catholicism,  Protestantism,  these  do  not 
matter  very  much  when  you  get  down  to  the  real 
thing  like  that!  It  is  in  that  way  God  is  always 
dealing  with  men.  We  build  churches,  preach  ser¬ 
mons,  try  different  religious  methods,  like  children 
playing  with  their  building  blocks.  The  great 
worker  upon  the  hearts  of  men  is  the  invisible 
silent  Spirit,  and  only  He  knows  how  He  trans¬ 
mutes  that  external  meaningless  belief  into  the 
character  that  merits  confidence.  We  pay  too  much 
attention  to  the  merely  doctrinal  side  of  our  creed. 
I  do  not  minimize  its  value,  it  makes  all  the  dif¬ 
ference  to  have  a  clear  and  pure  teaching,  but  it  is 
only  half  of  the  mystery  after  all.  It  is  not  so 
much  whether  I  believe  in  God  as  whether  God 
believes  in  me.  I  am  not  a  Christian  because  I 
think  it  most  probable  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was 
the  Son  of  God;  I  am  a  Christian  rather  if  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  could  have  trusted  me — can  indeed 
trust  me  now. 

In  this  City  Temple  one  always  has  the  con¬ 
sciousness  that  there  are  folk  who  gather  from 
Sunday  to  Sunday,  but  who  have  little  definite 
creedal  belief.  I  want  to  say  to  you,  “  the  essence 
of  true  Christianity  is  being  worthy  of  the  trust  of 
Jesus  Christ.”  Suppose  that  the  great  eternal 
Spirit  in  this  world  is  a  Spirit  like  that  of  Christ. 
Suppose  that  the  last  question  that  shall  be  asked 
of  us,  when  life  is  over,  and  the  greater  light  has 
dawned,  shall  be  asked  in  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  of 


F.  W.  NORWOOD 


191 


Nazareth,  will  not  the  supreme  thing  be  whether 
we  have  so  lived  as  to  have  deserved  His  trust? 
You  have  your  difficulties,  but  can  you  go  away 
determined  to  try  to  live  so  that  Jesus  Christ  would 
have  trusted  you,  would  have  rested  His  cause  in 
your  hands,  and  believed  that,  in  spite  of  all  your 
weaknesses  or  your  failings,  you  would  remain 
loyal  and  carry  through  at  last? 

Let  us  try  to  live  so  that  Jesus  might  reasonably 
believe  in  us.  They  whom  Jesus  could  have  be¬ 
lieved  in  are  usually  those  in  whom  others  believe. 
When  sufficient  time  has  passed,  we  forget  the 
idiosyncrasies  of  their  belief  and  remember  just 
that! 


XIII 


CHRIST’S  MAN 

By 

FREDERICK  F.  SHANNON,  D.  D., 
Minister  of  Central  (Independent)  Church ,  Chicago 


Frederick  Franklin  Shannon  was  born  in  Morris 
County,  Kansas,  February  n,  1877.  He  received 
his  education  at  the  Webb  School,  Bell  Buckle,  Tenn., 
and  at  Harvard  University;  was  ordained  a  clergy¬ 
man  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South, 
1899;  pastor  Logan,  W.  Va.,  1899-1900;  Grace 
Methodist  Church,  Brooklyn,  1904-1912.  In  1912, 
Dr.  Shannon  was  called  to  the  pastorate  of  the  Re¬ 
formed  Church  on  The  Heights,  Brooklyn.  Here  he 
remained  until  1919;  he  was  called  to  the  pulpit  of 
historic  Central  Church,  Chicago,  as  the  last  in  that 
famous  succession  of  great  prophets — Hillis  and 
Gunsaulus.  Dr.  Shannon  is  a  pulpit  genius.  Prac¬ 
tically  a  self-made  man  (in  the  best  sense  of  the 
term),  he  is  to-day  one  of  the  most  brilliant  preach¬ 
ers  of  modern  times. 

Among  his  published  volumes  are:  The  Land  of 
Beginning  Again,  The  New  Personality,  The  SouVs 
Atlas,  The  Enchanted  Universe,  The  Infinite  Artist, 
The  Country  Faith  and  The  Economic  Eden . 


XIII 


CHRIST’S  MAN1 

“But  if  any  man  hath  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ ,  he 
is  none  of  his  — Romans  8 :  9. 

PAUL  has  a  fashion  of  penetrating  into  the 
very  soul  of  reality.  The  text  is  a  striking 
illustration  of  his  method.  He  is  consider¬ 
ing  the  stamp  of  a  genuine  as  contrasted  with  a 
spurious  Christian.  Laying  aside  conventionalities, 
he  declares,  in  a  swift  lightning-stroke  of  thought, 
what  constitutes  the  ultimate  in  discipleship.  It  is 
this:  The  Christian  is  a  person  possessing,  and 
possessed  by,  the  Spirit  of  Christ.  Everything 
else  is  beside  the  mark.  The  issue  is  clear-cut. 
There  is  no  haze,  no  half-lights,  no  soft-tinted 
suppositions.  It  is  simply  the  difference  between  the 
quick  and  the  dead,  fact  and  fiction,  make-believe 
and  reality.  “If  any  man  hath  not  the  Spirit 
of  Christ,  he  is  none  of  his.”  Here  is  the  death¬ 
blow  to  mere  professionalism,  a  kind  of  judgment- 
day’s  doom  for  clever  excuses  and  popular  trim¬ 
ming.  Moreover,  it  is  a  challenge  to  our  own 
time,  which  seems  in  a  strait  between  the  Emer¬ 
sonian  and  Father  Taylor  types  of  mind.  The 
philosopher  and  the  Methodist  preacher  were  very 
dear  friends,  but  lived  in  different  sections  of  the 
1  From  “  The  Economic  Eden.” 

195 


196 


CHBIST’S  MAN 


spiritual  universe.  “  Emerson/'  wrote  Taylor,  “  is 
one  of  the  sweetest  creatures  God  ever  made ;  there 
is  a  screw  loose  somewhere  in  the  machinery,  yet  I 
cannot  tell  where  it  is,  for  I  never  heard  it  jar. 
He  must  go  to  heaven  when  he  dies,  for  if  he  went 
to  hell  the  devil  would  not  know  what  to  do  with 
him.  But  he  knows  no  more  of  the  religion  of  the 
New  Testament  than  Balaam’s  ass  did  of  the 
principles  of  the  Hebrew  grammar.”  Now  this 
is  not  just  a  discriminating  and  humorous  state¬ 
ment.  It  is  far  more  than  that;  it  enables  us  to 
catch  two  souls  in  their  attitude  toward  finalities. 
Intimate  as  they  were,  friends  and  lovers,  able  to 
respect  and  appreciate  each  other’s  individuality, 
yet  the  religion  of  the  New  Testament  and  Christ 
mark  the  line  of  separation  for  Emerson  and 
Taylor.  And,  my  friends,  make  no  mistake — this 
is  the  line  of  separation  for  all  of  us.  It  is  just 
a  pointblank  choice  between  the  lower  and  the 
higher,  the  secondary  and  the  essential,  the  good 
and  the  best.  Here,  then,  is  the  gist  of  our  present 
study — whether  we  have  any  right  to  accept  the 
inferior  ways  of  life  and  faith  when  the  more  ex¬ 
cellent  and  superior  are  demanding  a  verdict. 

I 

By  way  of  approach,  we  may  say  that  the  lesser 
meanings  of  Christianity  partake  of  the  imper¬ 
sonal.  Dropping  the  negative  in  the  text,  it 
reads:  “  If  any  man  have  the  spirit  of  Christ” — 


FREDERICK  F.  SHANNON 


197 


that  is,  spirit  is  spelled  with  a  small  “  s.”  It  im¬ 
plies  that  the  Christian  is  one  under  the  influence 
of  a  man  named  Jesus,  who  lived  and  died  in 
Palestine  two  thousand  years  ago.  He  was  a  good 
man — the  best  earth  ever  saw;  he  was  a  great 
man — the  greatest  among  the  sons  of  men.  But 
he  is  dead  and  gone ;  the  stars  keep  watch  above  his 
Syrian  grave ;  he  is  a  lovely  memory,  precious,  but 
just  a  page  in  the  sealed  book  of  the  past.  This, 
I  think,  is  an  adequate  statement  of  the  imper¬ 
sonal  phase  of  Christianity.  Analyzed,  this  view¬ 
point  breaks  up  into  the  following  subdivisions: 

1.  Jesus  is  an  atmosphere.  The  metaphor  is 
excellent.  Atmosphere  is  essential  to  physical 
well-being.  A  room  is  shut  off  from  the  outer 
world.  Darkness,  disease,  and  death  hold  carnival 
within.  Why?  For  lack  of  atmosphere.  Fling 
wide  the  doors,  open  the  windows,  and  atmosphere, 
sweet,  keen,  health-bringing,  comes  smiting  in  with 
gently  powerful  pressure.  So  this  idea  of  atmos¬ 
phere  as  descriptive  of  Jesus  on  man  and  society 
is  fine,  but — impersonal.  It  marks  the  difference 
between  the  antique  east  and  the  modern  west, 
between  such  religions  and  cults  as  Hinduism  and 
Eddyism  and  New  Testament  and  historic  Chris¬ 
tianity,  to  say  nothing  of  the  finer  philosophies  of 
the  race. 

2.  Jesus  is  an  example.  This  is  better  still. 
Example,  we  know,  is  one  of  the  immeasurable 
factors  in  our  human  world.  The  example  of  the 


198 


CHRIST’S  MAN 


parent,  the  friend,  the  scholar,  the  statesman,  the 
preacher  is  so  vast,  so  subtle  that  we  have  no  ac¬ 
curate  method  of  reckoning  it.  Thus  certain  men 
emphasize  the  example  of  Jesus.  He  befriended 
the  outcast;  He  remembered  the  forgotten;  He 
sought  out  the  lost,  as  a  shepherd  seeks  the  one 
strayed  lamb;  He  loved  children  and  took  them  in 
His  arms;  He  toiled  with  His  hands;  He  entered 
into  the  joys  of  a  wedding  feast;  He  was  august 
in  His  simplicity ;  He  was  majestic  in  His  humility; 
He  was  compelling  in  His  self-assertion;  He 
was  quietly  masterful,  and  sometimes  He  was 
irresistibly  indignant  in  the  presence  of  injustice 
and  unrighteousness.  Yes;  Jesus  was  a  truly 
great  and  wonderful  example.  “  Why  not  take 
Him  as  such  ?  ”  asks  the  disciple  of  the  inadequate 
view.  Why?  Just  because  example  falls  pathet¬ 
ically  short  of  that  full-toned  vitality  which  bursts 
from  the  personal,  with  which  the  impersonal  can¬ 
not  be  on  intimate,  friendly  terms.  Jesus  as  an 
example,  merely,  confronts  us  with  the  alternative 
of  choosing  the  good,  the  second-rate,  when  it  is 
our  duty  and  privilege  to  choose  the  best  and  the 
supreme. 

3.  Jesus  as  a  teacher.  From  the  atmospheric 
to  the  exemplary  the  transition  may  not  be  marked, 
but  it  is  important.  It  helps  to  distinguish  some 
of  the  finer  shades  and  tones  in  Christian  thought. 
Thus  Jesus  the  teacher  occupies  a  separate  brain 
compartment.  Why  not,  says  the  lesser  stand- 


FREDERICK  F.  SHANNON 


199 


point,  close  with  Jesus  the  teacher  and  settle  the 
matter?  He  is  the  first  schoolmaster  of  the  race. 
Think  of  His  morality,  His  views  of  God  and 
man,  His  wealth  of  democracy,  His  international 
inclusiveness!  Socrates  was  Greek,  Cicero  was 
Roman,  Voltaire  was  French,  Shakespeare  was 
English,  Kant  was  German,  Emerson  was  Ameri¬ 
can,  but  Jesus — well.  He  was  opulently  universal. 
His  planet-wideness  could  not  be  obscured  by  His 
Palestinian  garb  and  Aramaic  speech.  Why  not, 
therefore,  accept  Him  as  our  foremost  teacher  and 
have  done  with  mental  hair-splittings?  Just  be¬ 
cause  the  facts  drive  us  to  something  beyond — 
infinitely  beyond — the  teacher,  however  transcen¬ 
dent.  For  the  general  soul  of  man  offers  no  deeper 
homage  to  the  Christ  than  this:  He  Himself  is  so 
interwoven  with  His  Teaching  that  the  truth  and 
the  person  cannot  he  separated.  This  is  phenom¬ 
enal  in  the  history  of  mankind.  Of  what  other 
figure  does  the  soul  make  such  rigid  demands  ?  It 
is  enough  for  Plato  to  be  identified  with  truth ;  we 
accept  his  truth  and  let  Plato  go;  but  truth  and 
Jesus — they  are  one  and  indissoluble,  now  and 
forevermore.  Who  cares  whether  Socrates  some¬ 
times  lost  his  temper  and  said  harsh  things  to 
Xanthippe?  We  rather  think,  perhaps,  that  it  was 
the  philosopher’s  duty  to  “  talk  back.”  But  we 
grant  no  such  license  to  Jesus;  we  demand  perfec¬ 
tion  of  Him.  The  Christian  consciousness  is  a 
hard  master — so  austerely  just,  so  whitely  true  that 


200 


CHRIST’S  MAN 


it  will  have  only  One  for  Master  and  Lord,  and 
One  alone !  He  must  be  without  blemish,  terrible 
with  moral  splendour,  free  from  fleck  or  taint. 

Here,  surely,  is  something  unique  in  the  history 
of  thought  and  character:  Truth  is  able  to  walk 
alone,  unattended  save  by  its  own  moral  grandeur, 
except  in  the  solitary  instance  of  Jesus.  Poetry 
could  even  dispense  with  Shakespeare  and  survive ; 
song  would  be  draped  in  mourning  the  rest  of  its 
years,  but  its  heart-break  would  not  be  utterly  in¬ 
curable.  Philosophy  could  drop  the  name  of  Im¬ 
manuel  Kant,  tremendously  significant  as  that 
name  is,  without  permanent  dislocation.  Art 
would  survive  if  Rembrandt’s  colours  were  taken 
from  its  canvases.  Science  would  be  sorely  handi¬ 
capped  without  the  work  of  Darwin;  but  the  loss 
of  that  imperial  name  from  scientific  categories 
and  processes  would  not  cause  chaos  in  the 
physical  universe.  Except  in  the  single  case  of 
Jesus  Christ,  truth  is  so  absolute  that  its  agent  may 
be  dispensed  with;  so  impersonal  that  undue  in¬ 
trusion  of  the  personal  element  is  bad  form.  But 
truth  and  Jesus  are  so  enmeshed  and  rooted  in  each 
other,  that  if  a  flaw  is  found  in  His  person,  the 
rafters  of  the  Temple  of  Truth  itself  would  come 
crashing  down.  Humanity  could  not  survive  the 
wound  wrought  by  a  false  Christ ;  the  moral  uni¬ 
verse  would  be  wrecked  by  the  shock  of  a  mere¬ 
tricious  Jesus.  Let  Solomon  be  a  rake,  and  David 
play  the  fool,  and  Peter  act  the  traitor,  and  John 


FEEDEEICK  F<  SHANNON 


201 


lose  his  temper;  but  Jesus — let  no  dark  stain  mar 
the  snow  of  His  being,  lest  life  itself  become  an 
idiot’s  tale  and  earth  be  found  to  rest  upon  painted 
fog-banks !  Is  not  this  demand  which  we  make  of 
our  Saviour  one  of  the  mightiest  tributes  the  soul 
could  offer  its  Redeemer? 

Moreover,  this  lower  or  second-rate  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  Christ  not  only  partakes  of  the  impersonal, 
but  it  is  marked  by  a  differentiating  character- 
strain  through  the  Christian  centuries.  For  ex¬ 
ample,  it  has  fostered  the  delusion  that  the  King¬ 
dom  of  God  belongs  to  the  intellectuals.  It  insists 
that  a  man  must  think  his  way  into  and  through 
the  spiritual  kingdoms.  Now  it  is  the  duty,  of 
course,  of  every  Christian  to  be  a  thinker;  but  if 
a  man  is  just  a  thinker,  operating  an  intellectual 
mental  trap  for  the  delight  of  seeing  it  open  and 
shut,  he  is  not  only  very  far  from  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  but  he  is  so  far  that,  until  he  changes  his 
method  of  spiritual  travel,  he  has  no  hope  what¬ 
ever  of  reaching  even  the  outer  confines  of  the 
Abode  of  the  Blessed.  Many  spend  so  much  time 
changing  their  intellectual  clothes  in  preparation 
for  the  Christian  feast  that  they  are  always  just 
too  late  for  the  feast  itself.  Too  often  they 
come  to  the  end  of  life  mental  incompetents  as  well 
as  spiritual  paupers.  It  is  a  solemn  task  to  keep 
on  speaking  terms  with  mind  and  thought ;  but  let 
us  remember  that  the  laws  of  mind  require  us  to 
play  fair;  we  cannot  go  intellectually  hopping, 


202 


CHRIST’S  MAN 


skipping,  and  jumping  through  our  years  without 
discovering,  in  the  end  of  the  day,  that  we  have 
largely  dissipated  whatever  thinking  powers  we 
may  have  had. 

Besides  the  intellectualist  the  lesser  viewpoint 
produces,  also,  a  passionless  type  of  discipleship. 
Well-pleased  with  life,  it  is  distantly  enraptured 
by  the  progress  of  mankind  in  general  and  of  itself 
in  particular.  Unaware  that  there  are  agonies  and 
heavens  and  hells  in  the  universe  and  in  the  human 
heart,  it  jauntily  acquiesces  in  the  hope  that 
“  Somehow  things  will  come  out  all  right.”  Thus, 
putting  nothing  worth  while  into  the  world,  it 
naturally  draws  nothing  out.  Such  living  declares 
no  Christian  dividends  because  it  earns  none.  The 
fire  of  missionary  activity  never  flames  upon  its 
hearth.  To  it,  the  dire  disasters  of  sin  are  as 
nothing  compared  with  the  shallow  reformations 
wrought  to-day  and  forgotten  to-morrow  or  the 
day  after.  Gliding  smoothly  along  the  broad 
highways  of  the  non-essential,  it  is  most  timid  in 
undertaking  those  great  spiritual  steeps  gashed  by 
Calvary,  indented  by  the  Tomb,  and  garlanded  by 
Resurrection  lilies.  It  has  a  positive  genius  for 
tracing  great  events  and  truths  to  secondary  causes, 
when  the  First  Cause  is  so  reasonable  that  any  but 
the  spiritually  blind  are  compelled  to  recognize  it. 
And  all  the  while  this  passionless,  splendidly  dead 
genus  of  discipleship  is  congratulating  itself  upon 
its  modernity,  pathetically  unconscious  that  it  is 


FREDERICK  F.  SHANNON 


203 


just  the  twentieth  century  dupe  of  those  outworn 
gnosticisms  which  flourished  in  Egypt,  India,  and 
Greece  thousands  of  years  ago.  Having  borrowed 
some  present-day  intellectual  toggery,  many  of 
these  vendors  of  the  antique  and  exploded  are  sell¬ 
ing  their  wares  at  bargain-counter  prices  and  in¬ 
cidentally  doing  a  land-office  business.  It  is  all 
beautifully  inane,  magnificently  humbuggish,  and 
Christlessly  tragical. 


II 

If  the  lesser  meanings  attached  to  Christianity 
emphasize  the  impersonal,  Christ’s  man  emphati¬ 
cally  asserts  the  personal.  “If  any  man  hath  the 
Spirit  of  Christ,”  suppose  we  read  it  thus,  “  he  is 
one  of  His.”  The  small  letter,  the  emasculated 
and  undistinguishable,  is  flung  into  the  back¬ 
ground  ;  that  which  ought  to  be  capitalized,  which 
is  agelessly  unique,  swiftly  occupies  the  front  lines 
to  wage  a  Christian  warfare.  After  all,  it  is  not 
the  professional  Christian  who  counts,  much  less 
the  neutral  dabbler  in  spiritual  shallows.  Rather 
is  it  the  man  possessed — the  man  reborn,  renewed, 
rerisen — who  knows  he  was  greatly  dead  and  who 
likewise  knows  that  he  is  throbbingly  alive  in 
Christ  Jesus — he  is  the  man  who  wears  well  in 
this  world  and  will  thrive  in  any  world  to  which 
his  soul-business  calls  him.  Consequently,  this 
larger  meaning  of  Christianity,  like  the  smaller, 
manifests  itself  in  certain  splendid  details. 


204 


CHKIST’S  MAN 


1.  Christ’s  man  is  he  into  whose  personality 
the  Christ  is  inwrought.  Here  we  come  upon  a 
realm  so  mysterious  and  occult  that  it  refuses  to 
yield  up  its  secret  to  clumsy  philosophic  and 
psychologic  tools.  Certainly  we  must  try  to  ap¬ 
prehend  and  understand  it;  that  is  our  duty  as 
well  as  an  essential  part  of  our  spiritual  unfold¬ 
ing.  Many,  however,  become  so  hypnotized  by 
the  process  that  they  are  undazzled  by  the  reality. 
Now  it  is  the  fact  we  are  considering,  and  the 
vibrant,  transfiguring  fact  is  in  my  text.  What 
is  it?  Just  this:  That  Christ  Jesus,  in  the  person 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  seizes  the  human  personality 
and  indwells  it.  This  fact  alone  constitutes  a 
Christian.  The  theology  of  it  is  another  and  dif¬ 
ferent  matter;  the  philosophy  of  it  is  just  an  effort 
to  put  decent  mental  clothing  upon  naked  thought ; 
the  psychology  of  it  is  compellingly  interesting  but 
unquestionably  secondary.  Multitudes  know  the 
reality  and  are  ignorant  of  its  philosophy;  multi¬ 
tudes,  also,  are  experts  in  the  philosophy,  and 
strangers  to  the  reality.  “If  any  man  hath  not 
the  Spirit  of  Christ,  he  is  none  of  his.”  He  may 
be  Buddha’s,  or  Zoroaster’s,  or  Plato’s,  but  he  is 
not  managed  by  the  Final,  he  is  not  in  companion¬ 
ship  with  the  Ultimate,  he  is  not  possessed  by  the 
Supreme. 

Now  this  is  either  truth  or  nonsense.  And 
nonsense  is  at  a  premium  in  our  time ;  why  should 
truth  be  thrust  out  into  the  cold — a  beggar  whom 


FREDERICK  F.  SHANNON 


205 


we  refuse  soul-lodging?  As  a  sample  of  the  kind 
of  thinking  that  evokes  applause,  take  this  state¬ 
ment  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  in  his  New  York  lecture: 
u  Character  persists  after  death.  If  we  have  no 
character,  then  our  individual  life  merely  goes 
back  to  the  general  stream  of  life  like  the  vegetable 
and  animal.,,  Assuredly,  character  persists  after 
death;  but  what  a  nice,  easy  method  Sir  Oliver 
has  for  getting  rid  of  personality!  If  we  have 
character,  supposedly  good,  we  survive  after  death ; 
otherwise,  we  are  merged  into  the  general  stream 
of  vegetable  and  animal  life.  That  is  to  say,  an 
atom  outlasts  a  soul.  “  Whip  an  atom  from  one 
end  of  the  universe  to  the  other,”  the  brilliant 
Thomas  Starr  King  was  wont  to  say,  “  and  it  will 
remain  an  atom  still.”  But,  argues  Sir  Oliver, 
if  we  fail  to  achieve  good  character,  we  blandly 
discharge  our  moral  obligations  to  God  and  man 
by  subtly  absconding  out  of  the  personal  into  the 
animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms.  What  an  invit¬ 
ing  Mexico  such  realms  would  be  to  every  wilfully 
moral  insolvent  and  practiced  scamp  in  the  spiritual 
universe!  Would  he  not  escape  thither  with 
mocking  joy,  glad  to  leave  his  creditors  and  the 
hounds  of  justice  in  the  lurch?  Like  much 
muddy  thinking  in  our  day,  this  kind  forgets  to 
distinguish  between  character  and  personality. 
Personality  cannot  be  gotten  rid  of;  it  may  be 
good  or  bad;  it  may  be  clothed  in  a  Joseph’s-coat- 
of-many-colours,  but  personality  is  on  our  hands, 


206 


CHRIST’S  MAN 


on  God’s  hands,  forevermore.  The  worlds  may  be 
folded  up  like  a  garment,  but  personality  is  so 
alive  with  the  stuff  of  Godhead,  that  it  cannot  be 
tucked  away  in  some  cozy  comer,  doomed  to  time¬ 
less  inertia.  Having  laboured  personality  into 
being,  at  the  command  of  God,  the  universe  can¬ 
not  modify  its  work,  nor  undo  what  has  been  done 
by  Infinite  Wisdom  and  Love. 

At  this  juncture,  also,  Christ’s  man  asks  a  ques¬ 
tion  of  the  psychological  researchers,  spiritualistic 
mediums,  and  disciples  of  the  ouija  board.  The 
question,  in  view  of  the  stress  which  is  placed  upon 
the  relatively  unimportant,  is  fundamental:  Why 
do  so  few  of  their  cult  make  any  effort  to  com¬ 
municate  with  Christ?  Beyond  all  question,  if 
anybody  has  survived  the  grave,  if  anybody  offers 
indisputable  evidence  of  persistence  in  the  unseen 
kingdoms,  it  is  He.  Thus,  if  humanity  is  on  the 
verge  of  establishing  some  new  method  of  com¬ 
munication  with  the  world  of  spirits,  is  it  not 
strange  that  more  is  not  made  of  the  One  Person 
Who  is  readily  accessible,  Who  challenges  mankind 
to  verify  His  claims,  Who  is  eager  to  be  com¬ 
municated  with?  Until  this  is  done,  some  of  us 
will  be  compelled  to  keep  our  spiritual  heads,  pay 
tribute  to  reason,  and  practice  the  old  but  ever 
new  method  of  climbing  to  the  feet  of  God  over 
the  rungs  of  the  unfallen  ladder  of  Christian 
prayer,  repentance,  worship,  forgiveness,  faith, 
hope,  and  love.  “  Every  one  that  hath  heard  from 


FREDERICK  F.  SHANNON 


207 


the  Father,  and  hath  learned,  cometh  unto  me,” 
says  the  Christ.  Have  you  had  authentic  tidings 
from  God?  Have  you  learned  the  unlearned? 
Very  well!  What  is  the  evidence  of  your  master¬ 
ship  in  eternal  matters?  That  you  rock  a  table? 
That  you  spend  your  days  in  trying  to  talk  with 
some  one  who,  in  Time  or  Eternity,  is  very  much 
of  a  human  like  yourself?  Not  at  all!  If  you 
are  expert  in  the  high  things  of  God,  this  is  your 
unassailable  credential — that  you  come  to  the  King 
of  Glory,  Who  opens  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  to 
all  believers.  Otherwise,  you  may  succeed  in  get¬ 
ting  yourself  everlastingly  classified  in  somewhat 
suspicious  company.  “  He  that  entereth  not  by 
the  door  into  the  fold  of  the  sheep/’  says  the  Good 
Shepherd  of  the  Immortal  Sheepfolds,  “  but 
climbeth  up  some  other  way,  the  same  is  a  thief 
and  a  robber.” 

2.  Christ’s  man  is  the  playground  of  authentic 
spiritual  power.  “  Ye  shall  receive  power,  when 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  come  upon  you.”  The  per¬ 
plexed  disciples  were  insistent  upon  minor  prop¬ 
ositions — times  and  seasons;  our  Lord  held  the 
major  matters  in  the  foreground — enriched  per¬ 
sonality  and  its  secret.  These  are  the  essential 
facts  for  all  men  and  for  all  time.  How,  in  the 
best  sense,  to  enrich  personality,  is  the  task  of  every 
human.  We  may  push  the  subject  into  the  back¬ 
ground,  giving  it  small  chance  in  our  tumultuous 
days,  but  some  time  we  are  as  certain  to  be  con- 


208 


CHRIST’S  MAN 


vinced  of  its  absoluteness  as  we  are  God-imaged 
men  and  women.  Personality  is  all  we  finally 
retain;  it  is  our  wealth  or  woe;  all  the  vanishings 
from  us,  all  the  clingings  to  us — these  are  meaning¬ 
ful  only  as  they  make  the  person  rich  or  poor. 
Having  laid  the  world  away,  we  shall  see  ourselves 
as  we  are.  The  trappings  of  circumstance,  the 
veneered  excuses,  the  conventional  apologies — all 
the  current  coin  which  rattles  so  loudly  in  our 
markets  of  hypocrisy,  has  no  purchasing  power 
whatsoever  in  the  emporiums  of  reality.  There¬ 
fore,  power — power  personalized — power  that  is 
the  essence  and  quintessence  of  the  highest  and 
finest  in  the  universe — power  inbreathed  and 
generated  by  the  Holy  Spirit — this  is  the  true 
mark  of  Christ’s  man,  who  is  not  the  victim  of 
what  William  Watson  calls  “  world-strangeness,” 
but  is  at  home  in  any  world,  because  his  Lord  is 
Master  and  King  of  all  worlds. 

“  Then,”  you  say,  “  if  this  is  so  important,  tell 
us  how  to  obtain  it,  or  receive  it,  or  possess  it.” 
That  is  a  noble  request  indeed — one  that  any  ser¬ 
vant  of  the  Lord  should  be  eager  to  comply  with. 
I  think  I  can  tell  you  how  to  become  an  instru¬ 
ment  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  how  you  may  realize  and 
illustrate  in  your  own  person  what  Professor  Pea¬ 
body  has  defined  Christianity  to  be — “  a  form  of 
power.”  The  initial  step  has  to  do  with  sin — re¬ 
penting  of  your  sin,  changing  your  mind,  forsak¬ 
ing  the  thing  you  know  to  be  wrong,  unhallowed, 


FREDERICK  F.  SHANNON 


209 


unworthy.  You  will  find  this  a  big  job — much 
more  than  you  contracted  for,  if  you  are  in  earnest. 
You  will  be  forced  to  your  knees — you  will  know 
wrestlings,  agonies,  misgivings.  You  may  wet 
your  pillow  with  your  tears  as  you  cry  out  in  the 
night:  “  God  be  merciful  to  me,  a  sinner.”  If 
your  case  is  genuine,  you  will  not  think  much  of 
your  possessions  or  your  position,  your  culture  or 
your  crudeness,  your  youth  or  your  age.  You  will 
feel  the  truth  of  that  assertion  of  Professor  James 
about  the  deliverance  of  all  religions — that  there  is 
something  wrong  with  you,  and  your  wrongness  is 
made  right  by  connecting  with  the  Higher  Powers. 
Or,  again,  you  may  not  be  the  subject  of  religious 
violence.  You  may  be  born  from  above  as  quietly 
as  the  new  day  arises  upon  the  world,  as  noiselessly 
as  summer’s  green  steals  across  the  pasturelands,  as 
softly  as  the  dews  of  night  kiss  the  faces  of  sleep¬ 
ing  flowers.  But  beware !  The  still-born  child  is 
forever  still.  Striking  the  true  Christian  vein,  we 
know  that,  in  general,  Christ’s  man  came  somewhat 
violently  rather  than  quietly  into  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  Of  this  much  be  perfectly  sure:  He  either 
knows  when  he  was  born  from  above,  or  else  he 
knows  that  he  is  alive  nozv.  Life  is  splendid  evi¬ 
dence  that  birth  has  taken  place.  Power — power 
in  the  will,  power  in  the  mind,  power  in  the  imagi¬ 
nation — “ye  shall  receive  power,  when  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  come  upon  you ;  ”  but — “  if  any  man  have 
not  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  he  is  none  of  his.” 


210 


CHRIST’S  MAN 


“  Christianity,”  said  Tennyson,  “  with  its  divine 
morality,  but  without  the  central  figure  of  Christ, 
the  Son  of  Man,  would  become  cold.”  In  verifica¬ 
tion  of  the  truth  of  the  poet's  statement,  many  a 
professed  disciple’s  spiritual  temperature  has 
dropped  several  degrees  below  zero.  And  all  be¬ 
cause  he  tried  to  make  Christianity  just  one  more 
of  the  world-philosophies,  instead  of  enjoying  its 
life-giving  vitalities,  of  experiencing  the  thrill  of 
its  power-inspiring  energies. 

3.  Christ’s  man  is  clothed  with  an  unworldly 
peace.  One  of  the  supreme  moments  of  history, 
surely,  was  that  in  which  the  Master  promised  His 
peace  to  the  disciples.  Calamity  had  shocked  them 
to  the  centers  of  their  being;  their  world  seemed 
to  topple  down  in  ruins  and  chaos;  they  were  like 
frightened  folk  of  the  woodlands  pursued  by  de¬ 
stroying  hounds.  But  hark!  The  chimes  of  un¬ 
earthly  peace  begin  to  peal  forth  in  that  troubled 
hour.  Peter’s  fear  vanished;  John’s  perplexity 
took  wings;  James  was  lifted  out  of  his  practicali¬ 
ties  into  tranquillizing  ideals.  “  Peace  I  leave 
with  you  ” — a  testament  which  will  outlast  Caesar’s 
dominions ;  “  My  peace  I  give  unto  you  ” — the  in¬ 
most  Soul  of  the  Universe  shall  gently  enfold  you 
in  His  protecting  care ;  “  not  as  the  world  giveth, 
give  I  unto  you  ” — the  world  gives  gorgeous  illu¬ 
sions,  I  bequeath  spiritual  substance.  Therefore, 
“  let  not  your  heart  be  troubled,  neither  let  it  be 
afraid.”  For  Christ’s  man  knows  that  His  peace 


FREDERICK  F.  SHARKOK 


211 


is  not  a  dead,  lifeless  calm,  an  unruffled  emptiness, 
but  something  fiery  and  glowing,  a  creative  serenity 
which  refuses  to  be  disturbed  by  all  the  tumults 
of  earth  and  time.  It  enables  one  to  perceive,  with 
George  Fox,  that  there  is  “  an  ocean  of  darkness 
and  death;  but  withal,  an  infinite  ocean  of  light 
and  love  which  flows  over  that  of  darkness.”  A 
man  said  to  me,  as  we  were  looking  out  over  the 
park  near  his  home:  “  It  is  lovely  here  in  summer. 
Sometimes  I  can  hardly  go  to  business  for  watch¬ 
ing  the  children  play.  As  many  as  fifty  nurses, 
with  their  happy-hearted  little  ones,  may  be  seen 
down  there  in  the  grass  and  under  the  trees  on  fine 
mornings.”  It  was  the  dead  of  winter  when  he 
spoke.  Snow  was  on  the  ground;  the  trees  wore 
no  “nests  of  robins  in  their  hair  the  music  of 
childhood’s  laughter  could  not  be  heard.  But  my 
friend’s  words  and  face  instantly  suggested  two 
aspects  of  peace.  First,  there  was  the  quick,  riot¬ 
ous,  innocent  peace  of  children  at  play.  It  was  an 
intervital  peace — a  peace  wrought  of  summer 
mornings,  of  singing  birds,  of  perfumed  gardens, 
of  green  trees.  Lovely,  it  was  external;  enchant¬ 
ing,  it  was  a  matter  of  environment;  sweetly  inno¬ 
cent,  it  was  unrelated  to  character.  The  man’s  face 
told  a  different  story.  It  was  the  playground  of 
many  a  storm  arched  by  spiritual  rainbows;  many 
a  temptation  had  left  its  imprint  there,  as  well  as 
many  a  victory;  he  had  companioned  sorrow  and 
joy,  failure  and  triumph,  doubt  and  faith — a  gal- 


212 


CHRIST’S  MAH 


lant,  masterful  human  who  had  fought  and  won  the 
good  fight,  serenely  westward  bound.  Such,  I  take 
it,  is  the  tribute  God  commands  the  years  to  pay 
lofty  human  character.  For  Christ’s  peace  at  last 
stations  the  soul  upon  the  skull  of  the  brute;  grants 
spiritual  equilibrium  in  a  universe  of  terrific  mo¬ 
tion  and  mystery;  abstracts  deepest  joy  from  bit¬ 
terest  sorrow;  turns  apparent  death  into  a  jubilate 
of  life.  Therefore,  if  any  man  hath  the  Spirit  of 
Christ,  he  is  one  of  His — one  of  His  redeemed,  one 
of  His  deathless,  one  of  His  music-makers,  one  of 
His  hundred  and  forty  and  four  thousand,  even 
they  that  have  been  purchased  out  of  the  earth. 
Christ’s  man  is  the  final  incense  the  universe  gives 
back  to  God. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


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